So my first two nights playing in the texasholdemradio $25 freeroll: 16th/~340 (knocked out by someone steaming with nothing) and tonight 2nd/~286 after my 4-handed pocket AA got cracked and left me with 2.5 big bets, then rallied, then evened the stacks heads up then had K6 beat by K7 to end it? This field lacked players of certain suspicious characteristics that the Venom, micro on demands, and $10 freeroll on demands seem to have. What follows is a bit scrambled but it's crazy late and I'm awake and all the pieces are there.
:vroam:
Notes:
1. I'm also a Data Scientist, (MA Math) I've played a million hands, and been a winning player over the last 4 years of my play. (2009-2011 online only, 2019 with IRL included) When I'm on I have it or whatever and you will be...
2. I play terribly sometimes when I want to find out certain things about opponents and because of this I could just be getting stomped in certain situations by good players interpreting my Sharkscope stuff in a certain way. (or bad play getting lucky?) I also play for too many hours and all that crap that can make you terrible, so I'm not whining about losing when I lose, rather I'm interested in the integrity of the game and making sure AI has no place at the table with human persons!!
3. Players who make machine speed decisions and actions are far too accurate about final strength of their hands, far more likely to catch runner runner wins, and far more likely to have only a single gear that ever reeeeeaaaaaaalllllllly gets used!
4. I occasionally use the insta-push myself and it can be effective, especially when so many of us have lost to this play by suspicious players. No doubt there is a way to do the insta-push with a 2 key press action like "ctrl-H then F3" but there is no way to be faster than the speed your eye can discern then react etc. The speed at which the inactives check/fold is "machine speed" instant to my perception, the same as the "call any" button would put an all-in call in the pot if the player were covered. (If there is a hold-em software that makes the insta-push all-in possible, like the "call-any" or "fold" buttons on the normal app, PLEASE tell me, that would be super useful.)
5. I get stupid lucky a lot! I have streaks of cards that just seem so crazy that I will play anything and often win with it, like Kevin Costner said in 'Tin Cup' (down and out golf pro): "You ride her til she bucks you or you don't ride at all." So I don't begrudge others on a hot streak and can identify danger and avoid it like ANY good player. But it's so hard for 80% of players not to give away chips to an algorithm playing your tendencies against you which leads to the monster stacks ALWAYS being a factor. If you look at my Sharkscope over the last month (trying to go from $0 to $1000 no deposit) it tells a story that looks like what you see in training a learning model, (Data Science?) upward trend then donk city as the crowd of opponents somehow all improved vs me at the same time... without ever having to play a hand against me.
6. I'm certain ACR has a 'problem' with AI and that some fairly simple techniques would easily identify the offending player.. a simple set of statistical reasoning exercises and corresponding algorithm design would be a great start.
7. I can imagine a way to use one laptop for the poker application and another to run the ML algorithm (say with voice recognition) that would allow you to be a human "bot" and this is ALSO cheating and can be detected. You will without a doubt identify some 160+ IQ folks who need to get themselves a MacArthur Genius grant and cure cancer or something but I'm sure we can reactivate those accounts after they get their grant....
Why am I bothering with all the words here?...
These past two nights, obviously a very limited sample, I've experienced online poker on the ACR app that plays like IRL tourneys, largely because it requires a few more steps and some regular maintenance to be a part of these games... (cardschat freerolls for instance?? anyone notice a general difference in play?) The competition wasn't easier per se, but it was quite obviously MORE human to the subject area expert with the fancy skillset. I should also note that I do kind of agree that you should be able to beat bots if you're good enough: This is true but it really narrows your margin of error and can make you far too superstitious to get it in there (best/worst of it) when you know you should. Another problem lies in tourney speed, in micro-limi-turbos you can't possibly get enough hands to consistently stomp a player programmed against your tendencies because there isn't enough time late stage.. this forces you to simply avoid the players who only play hands that river out to the best of it.. or only play them with cards soooo good they'll fold.. if you don't avoid them, they'll stomp you. AGAIN: I get owned by players I am sure are human sometimes and can take it, OK?
Sometimes a formal case appears RANTy due to the length you have to read and the laziness of the average reader of words these days, I'm still going to be a winning player IRL and online but I really love poker and it needs to be continually monitored because it will remain vulnerable to cheats. Poker is fantastic because it's the game that proves that the application of statistics in particular or Science in general will lead to MORE money made or objectively CORRECT action; in some way it PROVES that mathematical laws govern reality, TO ANYONE, and that those laws incorporate a few rolls of the dice. Terribly unsettling even to those far smarter than ol' Sobewan can claim. (3rd person here JIC you need to believe I'm a jerkface)
So here's the point,
If you're human and a winning player:
1. You don't call a bet for all your chips late stage of a meaningful tourney needing runner runner straight cards to beat an obvious OVER set/trips/two pair etc.
2. You don't play 80% of the hands you enter down to river and win ~70% of your showdowns.
3. You don't limp call all bet sizes on every street with pocket twos, threes, fours,,, down to river and win. You don't flop a set every time you play a low-to-middle pair...... I hope.
4. If you're not a psychopath, you radiate some form of discernible energy that any em-path can kinda sense. Like I kinda know the guy who cracked my aces and happened to get the K7 instead of the K6 in the final hand was sincere/a_little_apologetic/respectful_of_future_hands_vs_the_Sobewan (3rd again) when he wrote, "<@Sobewan> Very well played," and I was pretty sure he laughed with my joke in chat when I said, "I guess I just needed to fold my Aces.."
5. Other stuff.
So let's add some human-level verification to the expected security framework of online poker sites. Implement the kind of random sampling tests that will easily identify whether a human is playing or not.. have you met Webcam? Identify a picture? tell my why a joke is funny? call me on the phone and tell me why you played the hand you JUST played that way? Other smarterest ideas...?!
We will be able get Pokerstars back in the US and "raise all boats" in the online poker industry by being smarter than and beyond the reproach of those politicians who are too dumb to see cards as anything but a gamble BY making people like ME (or more qualified folks) the face of the industry. Otherwise the only "gambling" that will remain available will be the games that can't be beat. Games with the, "only lose what you can afford" nonsense that comes from legally cheating people by using their own misguided hope against them. Games that remain legal by piggybacking their 'acceptableness' on the legitimacy of profitable poker pros and corrupt political dealings.
#UrPlayingCheckers #BourneJedi #AndAThirdThing :vroam::bike:
JIC: THANK you ACR for giving us a place to play, it is almost great!!!!!!!!!!!
