Author: horse-racing-free-tips

Many gambling chats and news groups devoted to poker more and more frequently anxiously mention the so-called card-playing robots, known as “bots” in the nomenclature of the Web, that are being used on commercial gambling sites. Many players are sure that a number of gambling portals prospers due to the use of the special programs, able to beat an above-average player, not mentioning a beginner. In a traditional casino you can always guess the weak sides of your competitor, figure out his strategy and etc, in a virtual gaming house there is no telling your competitor is a human, but not specially created program, “substituted” for a real player.

If it is true, then widespread of poker bots capable of beating an average player would pose a significant problem for poker sector. Without creation of a special system verifying the identity and “humanity” of cards players in on-line casinos, the business could be significantly undercut. This is an opinion of players themselves, and gambling figures, interested in further development of on-line game industry.

Some skeptics say that, considering the complexity of the game and constantly changing strategies, creation of the program that can read opponents’ cards using special techniques of screen scanning and respond in real time is many decades away at best. The supporters of this point of view point to the variety of commercial programs that purport to help players, but with no actual effect. However there is a ready answer for all of these objections – in Canadian University of Alberta a computer poker research group has developed an artificially intelligent automaton known as “Vex Bot”. This robot is capable of playing poker at master level in a game with two players. The new system has already been used to test the frontiers of artificial intelligence, as it will be the basis for commercial poker tutorial program. As soon as the news about robot creation was published in media, the creators began to receive letters mentioning the danger of system use for the purposes of illegal gambling business.

Darse Billings who is lead designer of “Vex Bot” considers that probability of the use of bots on commercial sites is approximately 50:50, but he is also sure that all of the modern programs can unlikely match his creation, which is a result of a 10 years research work of a team of specialists.

“The strategy of the game is difficult and to sit down and write a program that can beat a table of experienced human players is no trivial task,” Billings said. According to his the opinion, the biggest obstacles lie in the amount of information unavailable to the player and the need for the program to be able to employ a variety of strategies at different times, such as bluffing and laying traps for opponents, etc Exactly for this purpose artificial intelligence was added to the system, capable not only calculate probabilities but also line up logic of game, model it’s opponents behavior, etc.

In the opinion of creators of “Vex Bot”, its main advantage is that, as well as any other robot; they have no emotions, no fear and no shame and can not be nervous. He will remain indifferent even before the most aggressive player.

Journalists, studying the problem of poker boats, note that it is very difficult to get the real picture because of the unwillingness of many gambling operators to answer upon requests on this issue. There are no high-quality programs, able to watch suspicious poker sites with the unusual patterns of game.

Representative of CryptoLogic Company, commenting this problem, mentioned that some players, suspected to use of boats, have been banned from the member sites. Sometimes it is just impossible to be sure who plays is a human or robot, but a company, exposing all unusual strategies, prefers to be reinsured and protect itself from the possible socializing with a bot.

Professional players, speaking about the popularity of poker bots, mention how advantageous it can be: if you have the program, able to play 25 casinos simultaneously, two tables apiece and even if you are playing a minimum $10-20 on a game, you earn $1000 an hour. The participants of many gambling chats are distressed that the computer programs have already took the place of interactive poker. Skeptics are sure that poker will continue to become more popular, in spite of all of threats from the side of programmers. In their opinion, it’s only a matter of time before more people want to create their own bots to be remembered, but all of these attempts are doomed to failure.

Computers and the Internet probably is the most fast-growing field of technology, so, in the nature of things, the casinos and poker-rooms try to ride the ground-swell and use new technologies that became available recently wherever it is possible.

The first online casinos have been made in simple HTML, but since the advent of Java language as well as with spread of flash technology online casinos started to use these technologies. In the course of time, offline casinos have improved graphics and sound and have added new games. Advent of online casinos had become the first considerate achievement in online gambling together with development of broadband access. In these casinos one plays not against computer dealer but against real dealers playing on the real equipment and the player may receive the video record of the course of this game. Roulette had become the first online game as it is easily broadcasted online and any number of players can parlay on one table because there is no need to make any decisions. The stakes are placed on a virtual table and after that the real spin is made; all gamblers receive one final number and payments corresponding to their bets. By the way, if there are a lot of gamblers in one casino it becomes unprofitable and almost impossible for the latter to swindle and that increases the attractiveness of game. Soon baccarat had become online too: the player does not make any decisions in the course of game and the cards dealing is made on a standard pattern. But in case of another popular game – blackjack had appeared some difficulties. Many players cannot simultaneously play at one table because they decide to take or not to take the card and these decisions may be different so the dealer cannot simultaneously execute them. That’s why online blackjack, as well as real, is played by one dealer against only a few players simultaneously. As a result this game usually has quite high bets.

Nowadays, there are a lot of online casinos offering three abovementioned games (for example, such games are usually offered in casinos with Playtech software), but at present there is no video poker, although there is talk on its promotion. There is an idea to propose players to use their web-cams: each player will film himself during game and transmit the data to a server which will distribute this data among other players. As a result one can see the opponent’s face during the game and that will add new options, especially for players’ psychology experts. Of course, these proposals are not realized nowadays but when they will be realized the Internet-poker will become quite similar to offline poker.

Another latest thing that is used in gambling is 3D graphics. Some years ago Intercasino had announced the advent of new version of software – “the first 3D casino”, although, in fact there were a few static 3D portraits of players. Since that time quite many casinos and some poker-rooms had produced so-called 3D software; usually there were completely static, pre-rendered pictures of people and table which had little in common with “real 3D”. But, in general, tridimensionality in casino is not very interesting – 3D table or even a dealer will not be a revolution, though 3D effect of poker had become quite revolutionary. PKR had become the first real 3D poker-room: it had been opened just on a year ago and during this short term it had become among the leaders on visiting statistics (more than 5000 players at a time, although some of them play for love), even despite of absence of Americans and option of one table game. PKR offers the option to look at the table from different views as well as to pick the unique appearance of player, and this is the case: there are a lot of types of faces, hair styles, hair colors, clothes, footwear and accessories, so it is almost impossible to meet two similar players not just at one table but in all room. Appearance and standard clothes are possible to obtain free of charge, though expensive suit or accessories are to be purchased for points (which are collected easily and quickly), and the player can digitize his own face so that his poker avatar is his perfect copy! The players do not sit still – they really move dibs, look at cards (your cards are not shown all the time, it is necessary to press the special button and the player will look at them), express emotions (some standard emotions – from pleasure up to teasing), to play tricks with dibs (a few tricks are free of charge and other are to be purchased for points), pronounce their actions and it is possible to choose the player’s accent. In general, all players agree, that PKR is most realistic of all computer rooms. Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay for all that beauty: firstly, the game runs a little bit slower than in other rooms, secondly, you can play only at one table, thirdly, the game is resource-hungry and on slow PC it runs slower. And finally this game is recommended only to owners of unlimited Internet access (as well as online casinos, however), because it requires quite a lot of traffic. Only its installation requires more than 600 Mb, and during the game the room eats away nearly 10 Mb per hour.

Nobody knows the future result of gambling and technology mix; maybe in some tens of years the effect of presence will be reached, though now we can play the real roulette by means of video broadcast and 3D graphics makes a computer game nearly real. We’ll wait for new interesting decisions which will make the game even more convenient and pleasant.