Listen. And understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
-The Terminator

So what do you need, besides a miracle?
Guns. Lots of guns.
-The Matrix

It was just a fleeting worry, when I first started playing online, at PartyPoker and Ultimate Bet, that I could be playing a robot, who was much better than I.

But back then, almost anything could have been a better poker player than I, as I quickly lost my entire NL25 buy-in on the first or second hand. All-in. All gone.

A year and a half later, I've left those NL roots behind. Today, I play NL100, 200, or even 400 (if the fish are biting) and have risen up the limits to Poker Girl's $15/30 if I'm feeling it and my bankroll currently is larger than all of my friends' poker funds combined, even Mark. (I'm not buying beer for anyone, btw! hee hee!)

Along comes a new article in Wired, "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Bot," which is interesting, and I'm sure scary to newbies.

Basically the article talks about this programmer from Atlanta who has created this poker bot and already there are a proliferation of other bots out there. The article really doesn't talk to regular players, at least not of the likes of those who regularly share tips on the 2+2 forums. And those people don't seem very scared.

What's there to be scared of? A tight-aggressive robot that you can easily step away from? Or a robot who plays the exact opposite of how you play? In that case, bring it. I'd love for a robot to start dumping money to me in the loosest, weakest way possible.

They say the poker bots have a long way to go before they can really take on us humans. I say human players have a long way to go in plugging our leaks before we can really start worrying about bots affecting our game.

No matter how good a poker bot's play, the truth is that most of the leaks in the poker game are human in origin. It's like that now-cliched Pogo quote "We have met the enemy and he is us." No poker bot is going to make us blow off our bankroll to women or to place bets in the sports book. The bot is not going to cause us to misclick a bet when we're trying to play 11 tables or to call a bet on the river when we know we are beat.

The truth is, there's room for humans and bots to co-exist, given the sheer numbers of weak fish out there. The fish are just swimming up the rivers. I don't care if that tight-aggressive guy setting up a trap upstream is a human or a computer, for the same reason I don't care if someone can track me on a poker site's Buddy List -- I know I'm not going to be targeted.
Just like real fishermen, solid poker players look for the best places to fish. You throw a line in. And move on. Until you hit a good spot.

And, the best players are practically cyborgs -- half human, half machine -- anyway, with PokerTracker, Game Time+ and PokerAce HUD. Poker is monetary war and its best soldiers have the best equipment -- and the best training, thanks to the gamut of poker books and the 2+2 forums.

Fishy players should be in an uproar -- and have more to fear -- over players who can tell their opponents instantly how many times he's likely to see a flop or to check-raise a turn than some bot. I imagine it's also unpleasant for a fishy opponent to instantly be told by a player what his mucked cards are the second they disappear. (Thank you Poker Ace HUD!!).

Plus, one of the most useful tools is available to all -- the percentage of players who see a flop, which is commonly listed right next to the table name, number of players at the table and betting limits on a poker Web site. There, you can be guaranteed of fishy play when the flop percentage is high, say 50 percent to even 80 percent at times.

In addition, as tournament play or even playing a fishy $1/2 6-max table shows, you can be the best player and still be sucked out on. I'd like to be around to see a poker bot's wheels churn as its aces get cracked by J3, runner-runner boat.

In that situation, however, the one thing going for the bot is that it's not as likely to complain and whine that it got sucked out on. It'll be closer to battle-hardened human players, who just suck it up and move on.

And in that case, the bot will just be another brother-in-arms.

Source: Poker Cats