What high-stakes gunslingers like Jen Harmon and Annie Duke would do
heads-up against [poker bots]....would make Barbarella's
obliteration of Durand Durand's death-by-orgasm gadget feel like a
tender french kiss.
Jim McManus from Positively Fifth Street
I pulled the above citation from over at Iggy's place (the brackets and elipses are mine). His latest uber post is regarding the issue of poker bots, culling salient posts from 2+2 on the subject. It's an important topic and one not to be ignored - especially by the online poker sites. The more they can do to prevent collusion and online cheating, the more they will get my business.
The use of cheating software like WinHoldem is clearly unethical and the people who use it ought to be hung from their proverbial balls, to say nothing of the creator of the software. Want to see me on uber tilt? Cheat me. A month or so ago I nearly ripped a new one for a mother who proudly told me her son had quit school to play poker professionally. I nodded and smiled, commenting, "He must be very good." She went on to tell me how her son showed her the set-up he and his buddies have consisting of several computers and monitors in the same room. "They can see each others cards and...." I stopped her right there and told her flat out that her pride and joy was cheating. She just looked dumbly at me, hemmed and hawed - a big clue as to how her son could grow up to think that cheating was a good way to make a living.
But, WinHoldem and poker-bots aside, I've wondered about the use of "non-cheating" aids while playing online poker. I've played with Poker Tracker, Hold-Em Winner, Game Time+, and Poker Ace. Of that list, Hold-Em Winner has problably given me the most concern. That software will coach you, giving you your hole cards' hand ranking, pot odds, opponent stats and cues to bet, raise or fold. The first time I used it I did so well I was concerned that the software had hacked opponents' hands and was cueing me on hidden insider information. Of course, that's not the case. But it did give me pause. I use it rarely now, usually when I feel my discipline is slipping and feel the need to slap on some training wheels.
But is it ethical to use aids online? After all, you don't have that luxury at a B&M. But then again, what you don't have online is the benefit of looking your opponent in the eye, chatting him up, watching how he physically places his bet, how closely he's paying attention... In other words, online you don't have the aural, visual and social information for playing your opponent that you do in live play. The only information you have is betting patterns. The aids log those betting patterns giving you statistical information about your opponent - it's your decision on how you use that information. So, while these aids can give you an edge, I don't believe it's unethical to use them.
I've used those aids very carefully, though. There's a danger of becoming complacent and playing a bit robotically, depending on the aids too much. I disengage my brain and look to the software to tell me what to do. If I want to become a great poker player, that is the wrong way to use them. It's important to my discilpline to learn from them and use them as the tool they are intended to be and to not depend on them as a second brain to tell me what to do at every street. In that regard, I may use the software to get me started on a table, or to help in table selection, or when I move up in limits - and if I catch myself playing on "auto-pilot" I'll turn them off and fly solo.
If the only thing I was interested in was winning the pot, then I'd do best to let the software lead me and play by the book. Winning the pot, though, isn't the only thing to poker - it's the prize, the holy grail, the trophy, to be sure, but the game has a myriad of nuances and levels to it, all of which present a challenge - remove the challenge and you remove the game. Ask a true angler - would she rather spend a day on the pond, casting her line over and over for the prize fish, or throw a few dynamite sticks in the pond and rake them in? Maybe not a great analogy, but perhaps you get my point.
Years ago I directed the play Waiting for Godot. During one particularly frustrating rehearsal, the stage manager corrected one of the actors mid-stream when he strayed slightly from the script. The actor (and a close personal friend to this day), at his limit of frustration for the night, spewed forth, arguably, one of the greatest bits of theatre wisdom I have ever encountered. Slapping his hand on the script he steamed, "This is the map, that" - gesturing broadly to the stage - " is the territory. Do not confuse the map with the territory!" At best, online aids can point you in the right direction. It's up to you to blaze the trail.
