Thread: Possible to make Money outa Poker?

  1. #16
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    > That was my original thinking... a little app which flashes "FOLD" or "GO FOR IT". I never mentioned anything about bots.

    It takes very little math to tell you what the odds are. There are also programs available to tell you your odds given what's in your hand, how many people are in the game, what's on the table, etc. You don't have to write your own.

    Please don't rip off the rest of us that are just trying to have a good time playing online, though.

  2. #17
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    Actually I thought Sly was the one who assumed that he meant bots, but actually he just said using programming skills to advantage. Anyway there are probably situations where the odds are good but it still might not be a good idea to call. Take the case of a 51% (or even 60%) advantage, but you have to go all-in to get it. And is the program going to tell you when to raise? Is it going to tell you that a player has folded every time he's been raised, and so you should raise to figure out where he's at (because if he calls you're probably busted, and most of the time you figure to win anyway because he's going to fold)? There's so much to this (and I suck at poker), that I really doubt that an odds program is going to help much. You can memorize the odds without much difficulty...but I bet that you couldn't write a program that plays poker well unless you're a killer poker player anyway. And if you're a killer poker player, why do you need the program? The answer probably is that you want it to be a bot, that will log on to many poker servers at once, so you can maximize the number of hands played per hour.
    The crows maintain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. Doubtless this is so. But it proves nothing against the heavens, for the heavens signify simply: the impossibility of crows.

  3. #18
    Code Monkey Davros's Avatar
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    Even I did write a bot, I don't think I would want to leave it unattended to gamble with my money. In any case, I could see why people may get upset if they thought they were playing against a human when they were playing against a bot.

    I'm not ripping anyone off and I'm not sure I understand the paranoia on this topic.

    Think I'll call it a day here.
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  4. #19
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    I could care less what you do. If someone's playing poker online, they deserve what they get (there's bigger problems than bots when it comes to online poker...). But the same goes for you--if you write a poker bot (not saying that's what you're intending), I think it's trickier and more complicated than you might think. And it may turn out to be an even better way to throw away money than if you just played yourself.

    On the other hand, writing a program that will play poker, just for the challenge (and it IS a challenge) would be a great project. And if you can get it to play in an online play money table, so much the better.
    The crows maintain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. Doubtless this is so. But it proves nothing against the heavens, for the heavens signify simply: the impossibility of crows.

  5. #20
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Govtcheez
    No. I play online poker all the time.
    Gambling online is currently illegal according to the federal government. They say it violates some law against taking bets over the telephone lines. This is why all of the legit gambling sites are not based in the US.

    Though I wouldn't be worried about them busting down your door any time soon.

  6. #21
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    > If someone's playing poker online, they deserve what they get



    > They say it violates some law against taking bets over the telephone lines.

    There are no telephone lines involved in me playing.

  7. #22
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    Yes there are Cheez. Remember I worked in telecommunications while in the Marines. Unless 100% of the line from your house to the game server was fiber you are probably going over a telephone line or trunk at some point or another. And even if it was fiber all the way its probably being routed through a switch at some point.

    Heck we had some trunks that were data only, never touched our switch's electronics but still went over our copper lines and went through the cable heads inside the switch room.

  8. #23
    train spotter
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    The bots are designed to be played in addition to your own hand in the same game ie you + your bots v the rest

    This means you see more cards than your opponents and you can better calculate the odds on each hand. This can be a huge advantage.
    In some "hold 'em" style games you could even fold your worst hands before they start to cost anything.


    >>SlyMaelstrom>>All the top players on the poker tours are mathematicians, accountants, and any other career you can think of that has to do with cramming numbers and odds.

    The current World Poker Camp is a chiropractor...

    Don't forget casino staff as well.
    "Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
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  9. #24
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by novacain
    The current World Poker Camp is a chiropractor...
    Yeah exactly....

    The hip bone 'a goes to the... leg bone... the leg bone goes to the... foot bone... the foot bone cracks in a dozen places... and that's how I relieve the pain.

    Those guys deal with numbers all the time. But anyway, if you look at the list of the top players, a large percentage of them deal with calculations everyday.
    Sent from my iPadŽ

  10. #25
    C++ beginner
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    Idea: Get a real job.
    Oh my goodness.

  11. #26
    chococoder
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    On average the only people making money from gambling are the casinos (and now gambling websites).
    With a payout of only a few percent of intake the chances of making a winning are stacked against you.
    You may win a hand or two (in fact many of the websites may be stacked to cheat to let you win a few hands once in a while just to keep you spending more, as do good dealers on the tables (*)) but in the end just about everyone looses bigtime.

    (*) yes, it's easy to do, especially in software programs, to make sure a specific hand turns up when you control the cards.

  12. #27
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    > Yes there are Cheez.

    That's enlightening - I wasn't aware of that.

  13. #28
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    >>in fact many of the websites may be stacked to cheat to let you win a few hands once in a while just to keep you spending more, as do good dealers on the tables

    Casino dealers do not have any control over the outcome of any of the games.

    None of the casinos I worked at ever rigged a game.

    The casinos did not have to, there are plenty of punters willing to lose their cash and not very many (none realy) who know when to leave with the casinos cash.
    "Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    "I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
    George Best

    "If you are going through hell....keep going."
    Winston Churchill

  14. #29
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    > who know when to leave with the casinos cash.

    Even the other players help with this. In real life, if you take down a couple big pots, the other players will rag you so they can try and get their money back from you.

  15. #30
    chococoder
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    Casinos don't have to rig games like computer software can. Decks can be shuffled in such a way that the dealer knows pretty much in advance which cards will turn up for example.
    So in case of human dealers I'm not talking about actual cheating, no cards up the dealer's sleeve and stuff like that. If a casino were to do that they'd soon face criminal charges and civil lawsuits both.

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