New Software Rattles Heads-Up Poker Player

Poker companies have long recognized the damage poker bots can potentially inflict upon the online poker industry, after all, where’s the fun in competing against a computer program that knows your every playing tendency, and can grind away for hours on end without succumbing to either fatigue or tilt. Over the years, site operators have subsequently managed to enforce their strict terms of service on the issue through a number of different software tools, but a recent piece of software developed by online player “skier_5” has sparked an intense debate amongst players, as PokerStars has deemed it acceptable and not in violation of the site’s rules.
The program appears to combine both permissible software, such as the use of HUDs, and banned playing aids, such as poker bots, to produce a program which essentially helps automate many decisions during live play. While “skier_5” has insisted his program is not a bot as it is “the player that has to click the buttons, not the program”, many players instead see it as basically an AI program that requires a human assistance to push buttons.
By all accounts, it has already produced impressive results for “skier_5” and a handful of his confidants who have agreed to use the program in return for a share of their online winnings. According to various reports, this group of players has successfully managed to quickly move up in stakes whilst generating returns far above their usual expected level. Furthermore, analysts have noted remarkable similarities between the groups’ playing tendencies, and as twoplustwo forumposter “He I Se N Be Rg” wrote:
“It’s clearly more than preflop charts being randomized by a computer. skier_5, AllinGirl777 & freechdogg have identical preflop, flop and even turn stats (within ~1%) of each other over large samples.. If I had to guess, the software is capable of reading the stack sizes, hole cards and community cards. It then outputs the play (randomized of course) and the human just has to follow.”
PokerStars may not seem too concerned about the development, but programs such as these serve only to promote online poker as a game in which computer processing power trumps psychology, and in the long-run are likely only to put off more recreational players from ever taking up the game.