5 ms·

Though I'm not much of a poker player myself, I am friends with many professionals who have found success both online and offline, in games from pot-limit omaha

Though I'm not much of a poker player myself, I am friends with many professionals who have found success both online and offline, in games from pot-limit omaha to no-limit hold-em. Cheating in online poker has been around for many years, with varying success by online gaming companies to implement anti-cheat measures in their software. With recent developments in AI, there is renewed discussion about cheating as the best AIs have no trouble beating anything from PLO to NLHE. It was only a matter of time before this started to spread offline, and just a few weeks ago, I heard a story from a friend of a friend who caught a player using a device similar to this during a private game he was hosting. It's only a matter of time before these sorts of devices continue to spread, and I'm not sure how the world will respond. It would be a huge deal to cheat at events like the World Chess Tournament, but the consequences of getting caught will likely stop at complete disgrace. Cheating at events like the World Series of Poker, with tens of millions of dollars on the line, or even worse, private events with potentially billions of dollars at stake, could lead to a hell of a lot worse.

icelancer 4y ago
Oh yeah. Mike Postle was 100% cheating and getting fed moves from a confederate. But even if he wasn't, this type of setup with communication could simply maximize imperfect information, run it through a "solver" (which is what poker players call their game engines), and return the best plays. More on the Mike Postle thing in this twoplustwo thread, or of course, Google: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/mike-postle-cheating-allegations-faq-first-post-1753388/index306.html https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/mike...
- caminante 4y ago
  What a coincidence! I stumbled onto and down the Mike Postle rabbit-hole. [0] It's astonishing that he was blatantly able to peek at his phone, period, and he never got caught! My favorite is the hand where they're playing PLO (with 4 pre-flop cards) and the game overlay is still NLH (2 pre-flop cards). Postle freaks out trying to re-scan the RFID of his pre-flop cards. The behavior makes no sense unless...Postle knew (via his phone) that the game mode was wrong, and he couldn't see his opponents' hands. I'm assuming you have, but if you haven't breezed through Doug's channel, it's fascinating and really approachable. If I were playing online poker, I'd be paranoid that someone is using live assist. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kDtE9vrRiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kDtE9vrRiA
bravura 4y ago
How did your friend catch the cheater at their private game?
cortesoft 4y ago
About 20 years ago (before the crackdown on online poker in the US), I had a friend who made a good living playing online poker. His cheating strategy was to use an engine to watch every single game being played on the server. Once he accumulated enough data on players, he would simply play at tables where there were really bad players. He would have insight into each players strategy, and could counter easily. He made quite a bit.
- Tenoke 4y ago
  20 years ago online poker was extremely soft, and you could make a profit easily with a little bit of skill. At any rate, what you describe is usually not considered cheating - most sites (with some exceptions now, but likely none back then) explicitly allow software that tracks stats about players - by 2010 (when I was playing semi-professionally online) most regs used software like that (usually Poker Tracker or Hold'em Manager) both to make decisions in a given hand and to avoid tables with too many other regs in the first place.
  - cortesoft 4y ago
    It was a long time ago so my memory might be fuzzy, but I believe he played on pokerroom.com... the cheating part of it, from my memory, was that the tracking software had access to mucked hands, which normal players at the table wouldn't have access to.
    - adanto6840 4y ago
      For most of the sites, the software was reading the text-based "hand history" to collect data. When hands were mucked at showdown, the contents of the mucked hands generally appeared in the plain-text hand history (and most UIs provided a way to view them or to replay the hand action-by-action). There were a couple of sites where this wasn't the case, or where the hand history wasn't provided in a simple text format (or at all) -- but generally, that's how it worked for the majority of the poker sites/clients. The reason for being able to view mucked hands (at showdown) is because you can do the same in live games, at least that's the house rule in the vast majority of live rooms. It's almost always frowned upon, to varying degrees, to actually request to see a mucked hand - but generally IS allowed by rule (ie WSOP events explicitly allow asking to see hands mucked at showdown, though an 'anti-abuse' discretionary clause is included in that rule, too).
eganist 4y ago
I wonder if fraud laws anywhere are written in a way where cheating in tournaments with prize pools can catch charges that are already on the books.
kfrzcode 4y ago
Which AI has beat humans at poker? I'm curious as I just heard a guest on Lex Fridman's podcast say differently... I'm not up to speed with that realm
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  IIRC if you take out the human element of poker (bluffing), it becomes a statistics / numbers game - at least, I see 'win chance' numbers on the off occasion I see poker on TV. Knowing your chances and being able to guess at other players' gives you an advantage.
  - hahajk 4y ago
    But you don't need a computer for that... knowing the odds for a hand is a pretty basic skill. And on the other hand if you did place bets based on your hand odds you'd be leaking a lot of information to your opponent.
- __s 4y ago
  Pluribus
  - kfrzcode 4y ago
    Fascinating. > In AI, two-player zero-sum games (such as heads-up hold'em) are usually won by approximating a Nash equilibrium strategy; however, this approach does not work for games with three or more players. Pluribus instead uses an approach which lacks strong theoretical guarantees, but nevertheless appears to work well empirically at defeating human players. Across the competitions, Pluribus won an average of over 30 milli big blinds per game. Pluribus' self-learned play style eschews "limping" (calling the big blind), and engages in "donk betting" (ending a round with a call and starting the next round by betting) more often than human experts do.
- rieTohgh6 4y ago
  Not really related to AI but it gives quite an advantage if you can connect multiple "players" to same table. It is not worth to do it without some kind of automation and service providers try to prevent it from happening.
pedrosorio 4y ago
> private events with potentially billions of dollars at stake What are these? Elon Musk - Jeff Bezos head to head?
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  No, those are the make believe games that Dan Bilzerian loves to boast about.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
    There are certainly games with $10m+ on the table in total. I’m sure there have been 9 figure pots, if not 10, but not every single hand.
    - sgjohnson 4y ago
      I highly doubt that there have been 9 figure pots.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Yeah I'm fairly sure there's security checks at these tournaments and the environment gets tightly controlled; I wouldn't be surprised if they go as far as have everyone and everything that goes into the playing room go through a full-body X-ray.
illwrks 4y ago
"I'm not sure how the world will respond." Naked poker/chess etc...
- blackboxlogic 4y ago
  Don't forget the full body x-ray before each match.
Theodores 4y ago
In my circle of friends I have one or two that will take the option to cheat, to this day. This was fine during school days, but, as an adult, I question the behaviour. This is at cards (Bridge) and Scrabble with some quick hands of normal card games if there is a break or insufficient time for a 'Bridge Rubber'. My counter strategy is to win fairly and squarely. My cheating friends are obligated to spend a lot of effort planning the cheat and not getting caught. After the sleight of hand they also need to monitor the table to make sure nobody has noticed. They also need to be watching for others cheating. With Scrabble in particular, total focus on the task in hand is, for me, a much better strategy. The dopamine hit is being able to lay down all the letters, calmly and without commotion, to get maximum points, doing it again on the next round from a fresh rack of letters. This can be done with an 'open' game, where opportunities are given to competitors instead of made a priority to deny. Done well, this feels like you have just put together e=mc2 each play. Because of gambling mentality, the stakes get higher and higher. I am not in it for the money and feel troubled by taking what was other people's money from the table, more so if they cheat because I feel sorry for them. If it is a legitimate game then the stakes are representative of the situation, the prize can be fairly claimed. Of consequence is reputation. If you cheat and lose then that is going to be remembered by your peers for decades. However, if you play a monster game where people you have not played before start out with the assumption that they are just going to be battered, then that reputation is short lived. Which is good because people will still play you, even the cheats.
- gverrilla 4y ago
  Cheaters ruin games, it's never "fine", but sociopathic behavior.

icelancer 4y ago

Oh yeah. Mike Postle was 100% cheating and getting fed moves from a confederate. But even if he wasn't, this type of setup with communication could simply maximize imperfect information, run it through a "solver" (which is what poker players call their game engines), and return the best plays. More on the Mike Postle thing in this twoplustwo thread, or of course, Google: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/mike-postle-cheating-allegations-faq-first-post-1753388/index306.html https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/mike...

caminante 4y ago
What a coincidence! I stumbled onto and down the Mike Postle rabbit-hole. [0] It's astonishing that he was blatantly able to peek at his phone, period, and he never got caught! My favorite is the hand where they're playing PLO (with 4 pre-flop cards) and the game overlay is still NLH (2 pre-flop cards). Postle freaks out trying to re-scan the RFID of his pre-flop cards. The behavior makes no sense unless...Postle knew (via his phone) that the game mode was wrong, and he couldn't see his opponents' hands. I'm assuming you have, but if you haven't breezed through Doug's channel, it's fascinating and really approachable. If I were playing online poker, I'd be paranoid that someone is using live assist. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kDtE9vrRiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kDtE9vrRiA

bravura 4y ago

How did your friend catch the cheater at their private game?

cortesoft 4y ago

About 20 years ago (before the crackdown on online poker in the US), I had a friend who made a good living playing online poker. His cheating strategy was to use an engine to watch every single game being played on the server. Once he accumulated enough data on players, he would simply play at tables where there were really bad players. He would have insight into each players strategy, and could counter easily. He made quite a bit.

Tenoke 4y ago
20 years ago online poker was extremely soft, and you could make a profit easily with a little bit of skill. At any rate, what you describe is usually not considered cheating - most sites (with some exceptions now, but likely none back then) explicitly allow software that tracks stats about players - by 2010 (when I was playing semi-professionally online) most regs used software like that (usually Poker Tracker or Hold'em Manager) both to make decisions in a given hand and to avoid tables with too many other regs in the first place.
- cortesoft 4y ago
  It was a long time ago so my memory might be fuzzy, but I believe he played on pokerroom.com... the cheating part of it, from my memory, was that the tracking software had access to mucked hands, which normal players at the table wouldn't have access to.
  - adanto6840 4y ago
    For most of the sites, the software was reading the text-based "hand history" to collect data. When hands were mucked at showdown, the contents of the mucked hands generally appeared in the plain-text hand history (and most UIs provided a way to view them or to replay the hand action-by-action). There were a couple of sites where this wasn't the case, or where the hand history wasn't provided in a simple text format (or at all) -- but generally, that's how it worked for the majority of the poker sites/clients. The reason for being able to view mucked hands (at showdown) is because you can do the same in live games, at least that's the house rule in the vast majority of live rooms. It's almost always frowned upon, to varying degrees, to actually request to see a mucked hand - but generally IS allowed by rule (ie WSOP events explicitly allow asking to see hands mucked at showdown, though an 'anti-abuse' discretionary clause is included in that rule, too).

eganist 4y ago

I wonder if fraud laws anywhere are written in a way where cheating in tournaments with prize pools can catch charges that are already on the books.

kfrzcode 4y ago

Which AI has beat humans at poker? I'm curious as I just heard a guest on Lex Fridman's podcast say differently... I'm not up to speed with that realm

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
IIRC if you take out the human element of poker (bluffing), it becomes a statistics / numbers game - at least, I see 'win chance' numbers on the off occasion I see poker on TV. Knowing your chances and being able to guess at other players' gives you an advantage.
- hahajk 4y ago
  But you don't need a computer for that... knowing the odds for a hand is a pretty basic skill. And on the other hand if you did place bets based on your hand odds you'd be leaking a lot of information to your opponent.
__s 4y ago
Pluribus
- kfrzcode 4y ago
  Fascinating. > In AI, two-player zero-sum games (such as heads-up hold'em) are usually won by approximating a Nash equilibrium strategy; however, this approach does not work for games with three or more players. Pluribus instead uses an approach which lacks strong theoretical guarantees, but nevertheless appears to work well empirically at defeating human players. Across the competitions, Pluribus won an average of over 30 milli big blinds per game. Pluribus' self-learned play style eschews "limping" (calling the big blind), and engages in "donk betting" (ending a round with a call and starting the next round by betting) more often than human experts do.
rieTohgh6 4y ago
Not really related to AI but it gives quite an advantage if you can connect multiple "players" to same table. It is not worth to do it without some kind of automation and service providers try to prevent it from happening.

pedrosorio 4y ago

> private events with potentially billions of dollars at stake What are these? Elon Musk - Jeff Bezos head to head?

sgjohnson 4y ago
No, those are the make believe games that Dan Bilzerian loves to boast about.
- hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
  There are certainly games with $10m+ on the table in total. I’m sure there have been 9 figure pots, if not 10, but not every single hand.
  - sgjohnson 4y ago
    I highly doubt that there have been 9 figure pots.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

Yeah I'm fairly sure there's security checks at these tournaments and the environment gets tightly controlled; I wouldn't be surprised if they go as far as have everyone and everything that goes into the playing room go through a full-body X-ray.

illwrks 4y ago

"I'm not sure how the world will respond." Naked poker/chess etc...

blackboxlogic 4y ago
Don't forget the full body x-ray before each match.

Theodores 4y ago

In my circle of friends I have one or two that will take the option to cheat, to this day. This was fine during school days, but, as an adult, I question the behaviour. This is at cards (Bridge) and Scrabble with some quick hands of normal card games if there is a break or insufficient time for a 'Bridge Rubber'. My counter strategy is to win fairly and squarely. My cheating friends are obligated to spend a lot of effort planning the cheat and not getting caught. After the sleight of hand they also need to monitor the table to make sure nobody has noticed. They also need to be watching for others cheating. With Scrabble in particular, total focus on the task in hand is, for me, a much better strategy. The dopamine hit is being able to lay down all the letters, calmly and without commotion, to get maximum points, doing it again on the next round from a fresh rack of letters. This can be done with an 'open' game, where opportunities are given to competitors instead of made a priority to deny. Done well, this feels like you have just put together e=mc2 each play. Because of gambling mentality, the stakes get higher and higher. I am not in it for the money and feel troubled by taking what was other people's money from the table, more so if they cheat because I feel sorry for them. If it is a legitimate game then the stakes are representative of the situation, the prize can be fairly claimed. Of consequence is reputation. If you cheat and lose then that is going to be remembered by your peers for decades. However, if you play a monster game where people you have not played before start out with the assumption that they are just going to be battered, then that reputation is short lived. Which is good because people will still play you, even the cheats.

gverrilla 4y ago
Cheaters ruin games, it's never "fine", but sociopathic behavior.