NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars

[GaF]

Pretty amazing how it was brought to the attention of Pokerstars, one of the sites I actually consider most conscientious on security, investigated by them, and concluded that there was no issue :unsure The Stars representatives havent been seen (from what I can see) on the 2plus2 thread since PTR broke the story.... http://www.pokertableratings.com/blog/2010/07/bot-ring-discovered-on-poker-stars/

[staffy]

Re: NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars Pretty shocking if true.

[shane837]

Re: NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars be stars own bots thats why not said anything done anything

[slapdash]

Re: NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars I haven't (yet) read all of the 2plus2 thread, but I'm keeping an open mind. In the past, Stars security have typically made no comment until they've made a thorough (and sometimes long) investigation, and then they've acted decisively, so I don't yet regard their lack of comment as damning. A priori, I'd be inclined to trust Stars more than PTR, and the PTR evidence doesn't look conclusive to me.

[GaF]

Re: NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars

I haven't (yet) read all of the 2plus2 thread, but I'm keeping an open mind. In the past, Stars security have typically made no comment until they've made a thorough (and sometimes long) investigation, and then they've acted decisively, so I don't yet regard their lack of comment as damning. A priori, I'd be inclined to trust Stars more than PTR, and the PTR evidence doesn't look conclusive to me.

Are there any specific holes you would pick in the PTR evidence? Cos they have me convinced :lol :lol

[slapdash]

Re: NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars

Are there any specific holes you would pick in the PTR evidence? Cos they have me convinced :lol :lol

As I said, I haven't read all of the 2plus2 thread, so maybe my doubts are answered there, but on the basis of the PTR page, and assuming it's accurate, I don't see anything that would contradict the alternative explanation that the players involved were a group of friends trying out a mechanical short-stacked strategy. But I can't say I've looked at it in any detail, so I wouldn't be terribly surprised if there were some known reason why this couldn't be the case. I'm not saying I think they're not bots, I'm just saying that I'm open-minded. I've heard/read some quite impressive things about how sophisticated Stars are at detecting and combating cheats/bots (I don't know for sure how accurate this is, but I've heard that they transmit data about the cards to your computer in such a way that any bot would have to decipher the pixels on your screen, and that they occasionally move the pixels a little to fool bots.). In any case, it's quite possible that Stars have information, beyond hand records, that suggests that they're not bots. I haven't heard many impressive things about PTR. That doesn't mean that PTR are wrong, just that I require a bit more evidence.

[glceud]

Re: NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars Sorry but I dont really see what the problem is. An individual or group of individuals are using software to help them play poker? Whats wrong with that? I can understand PTR employees being aggrieved after all the painstaking hours they put in observing and hand writing down records of all those players online, but come on the rest of us all use software to perform tricks we cant do ourselves any way. So why not allow us to use software that would take away the tedium of sitting in front of the PC?

[GaF]

Re: NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars

I don't see anything that would contradict the alternative explanation that the players involved were a group of friends trying out a mechanical short-stacked strategy.

I confess I havent read it in that much detail either - however I think there are some things that discount this - for example - the fold to 3 bet stat in the Big Blind for all players is 100% (if I've understood it right) - that means they fold everything to a 3bet in that situation, including Aces - no non bot would ever do that would they?

[GaF]

Re: NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars

Sorry but I dont really see what the problem is. An individual or group of individuals are using software to help them play poker? Whats wrong with that? I can understand PTR employees being aggrieved after all the painstaking hours they put in observing and hand writing down records of all those players online, but come on the rest of us all use software to perform tricks we cant do ourselves any way. So why not allow us to use software that would take away the tedium of sitting in front of the PC?

I'm going to just ignore this because I cant think of a valid counter argument to it :tongue2

[GaF]

Re: NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars It seems Stars accept that they are Bots - post 437 in the 2plus2 thread:

Hello 2+2, PokerStars would like to update you on the status of this case, and correct several misconceptions that have been perpetuated throughout this thread. First, as of the afternoon of July 17, we have indeed removed ten players from the site for violations of our terms of service. We cannot give additional details about which accounts, or the specific reasons for their removal. Second, we would like to clarify something that the OP has left out of this entire discussion, which is that there were two separate investigations here. PokerStars absolutely did *not* exonerate these players from being bots at any time. We conducted a review of the three users listed in the OP for collusion, and it was negative, and this was reported to the OP, who posted an incorrect “PokerStars said ‘All Clear’” here. A review of the players for being bots was concurrently being conducted, and was in progress until today, July 17th. The OP was notified of this concurrent bot review being in progress, and did not inform this thread of that fact. We would like to address the fact that the play continued throughout the night of July 16th, after a third party source posted an independent review identified 7 additional players. PokerStars had also identified 7 additional players very early in our investigation -- prior to the third party site's identification of them. We were conducting a very in depth search to locate other potential accounts, to ensure we had located all of the accounts prior to closing them down concurrently. Shutting down only part of a ring in mid-investigation can spook additional, undiscovered accounts into cashing out prior to locating them. As of this afternoon, July 17, that review concluded that the ten accounts were the complete extent of the matter. Next, please note that third party sites did not locate this ring unassisted. They had a baseline of three identical player profiles from which to start, which is a far more trivial task than saying "here's a collection of 4 million players... now, find me 3 who are identical.... without a baseline from which to search." One is a linear search (searching for a particular pattern) and the other is exponentially more difficult based upon the number of players. PokerStars located the rest of the ring faster than did the third party site. MicroBob wrote: Quote:

Stars, with however many staff they have who are specifically paid to find this stuff, were unable to detect it after being told by people on here to look for it. It's not even a matter of them just not having checked on them or it just slipped past them. They were actually actively looking directly at these players and investigating them and still couldn't see it.

This is a misconception perpetuated in this thread by incomplete information. Please see above regarding the timeline of this investigation. Finally, to address why these players played for a relatively extended period without detection, we can say that upon conclusion of this review that the bots were fairly sophisticated in certain aspects, including their human behavior modeling and their stealth capabilities. Our tools for bot detection are sophisticated, but they are not perfect. No site can guarantee you that they are completely free of bots. What PokerStars can and does pledge is that we use our extensive tools behind the scenes to detect bots as best we can... and they are very effective. We detect and remove most bots well before they even leave the development stage, and well before they could play long enough to come to the attention of players or third party databases the way these players did. PokerStars takes its commitment to bot detection and removal extremely seriously, and will continue to do so, both behind the scenes with our tools (which are under constant review and improvement), and in response to player-generated suspicions. Most player reports of bot suspicions are false alarms, but we still investigate each one thoroughly, and when they actually do locate a previously undetected bot, appropriate action will always be taken. Best Regards, Jeff PokerStars Game Security

[Esox]

Re: NLHE Bot Ring discovered on Pokerstars pretty shocking IMO