Rise of the Bots

First off I have to say thanks a lot for all the Bloggers who showed up to the game last night. I had a blast! The only bad part to last night is my rating was downgraded from TAP to sLAP! I do not know if I was heading in that direction anyway, or if the number of hands I was able to play in a short game just totally skewed all of my PT stats. I actually think sLAP’s might make a little more money on Party or Empire than TAP’s. The reason I say this is that when everyone at your table is playing A2 like it is AKs, and CALLING to the river if an A flops you need to be more inclined to go in with you’re A-10o in EP, etc.. It requires you know when your beat but the money you are giving up by not playing is too much to ignore.

I have been thinking about my game a lot lately. It really is tricky to figure out where your game is. You are not supposed to use your bankroll because winning is not necessarily an outcome of good play. Other factors cloud this such as getting good cards, playing against sub-par players, getting sucked out, etc.. etc..

So the only factor you can use is your hand history. Chris was saying how he regularly, after a good session or a bad one, goes through his hand history and checks to see how well he is doing from a playing perspective. I agree with that however how do you figure out what the best move for the game you were playing was. It also is hard to figure out what your hand was from PT stats. You then need to take your cards at every turn and the amount in the pot, implied odds, etc.. and calculate what the best probable move was. Very time consuming. The table replay helps a little. I think that it would be nice if PT did this for you. I am thinking of programming a calculator that reads Empire Hands and for each hand it breaks it down for you, giving you a turn by turn assessment of your play. What % chance your hand had at each play, Pot odds suggested move, etc.. If I could do that it would be good. Is there anything out there that does this? Does PT have some hidden feature that helps me analyze my hands?

I am also going to work on the BOT. As an intellectual experiment it seems like a real fun idea. Once it is completed and tested I will have the first annual Bot Wars! I will try him out on a .50/1 table with only other Bloggers who know they are playing against a BOT. We will see who is better the Bloggers or the Bot! My money is on the Bot. Heh!

As far as design concepts go I am going to program the fellow to be totally scriptable. His personality, the hands he plays, how aggressive he is, will all be controlled by data tables. Initially I am going to code him to be like me sLAP or TAP. I think somewhat passive post-flop is necessary since it will be very hard for him to determine when he is beaten. If I can get a nice AI going that knows based on the opponent when he is beaten, then I could change him to be more aggressive post flop.

Basically if the BOT was successful it would prove that playing statistical numbers to the decimal point will cause you to win. I think I will program him with a set of taunts too. If he is doing well and wins a lot of pots then he will talk trash, maybe a few “Your momma” jokes in there. Perhaps he can whine about bad beats, ehh? I..E. “You were only a 4.123987 percent favorite pre-flop, why did you call my 4BB raise? You do not know how to play Poker!”. I will keep you posted on the progress of the Bot. If he is any good it would be interesting to be able to have him run all night long making me money.. or working 4-8 tables all night long. Wow! Think of the possibilities!