The Unfortunate End Result of Solvers? (1 Viewer)

Wait.

No limit boredom and ONLINE?
People cheat? NOOOOO f-in way!!! lol

I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Many many many times with collusion and solvers. Too much money involved. Duh!
 
I've always took issue with Huds and solvers. That's been my biggest beef with most of the major online poker rooms. They block certain software but allow companies or places they're in bed with to integrate. Just block them all.

Nothing you can do about someone using a different PC to do it but how fast can some of these solvers work? Post flop I know it's faster and even faster at the turn and river but they have to get there first.
 
I've always took issue with Huds and solvers. That's been my biggest beef with most of the major online poker rooms. They block certain software but allow companies or places they're in bed with to integrate. Just block them all.

Nothing you can do about someone using a different PC to do it but how fast can some of these solvers work? Post flop I know it's faster and even faster at the turn and river but they have to get there first.
For the levels most of us play, I'm not too concerned. But in terms of anyone having a high stakes online career. That dream has long sailed. Too much info too fast.

Even if people switch to other games, it's only a matter of time before they get solvers too. It will just take longer because more cards equals more complexity.

Live NLHE up to probably 5/10 maybe 10/20 will still be beatable for decent money. But online poker allowing so much data to be mined and so many hands to be played has effectively killed itself.

If online ever gets legalized in the US, there will be a short amount of time where the money will be good, but that will evaporate extremely quickly.
 
I used to play online every day during the poker boom. Micro-stakes NLHE cash, low-stakes limit Hold'em, and occasional mixed games and STTs/MTTs.

After the big sites all got shut down, that was the end of it for me. I'm comfortable risking money at poker, but also risking it against the possibility of the site getting torn down and me having to beg the government for my online roll back? No thanks.

Now that public online poker has been around for a while and is slimmed down to mostly serious players, we're coming up on the additional problem of adept, systematic cheating (as opposed to sloppy opportunistic cheating from weak players). We have been coming across this on and off for years now, actually, and the number of cases that have been exposed should alarm anyone who plays online, since they likely only represent a fraction of total cheating instances.

It's bad enough for collusion to be so easy to carry out undetected. That's the main form of cheating I would expect to arise out of a game where the players can communicate so freely while in-game. But this new trend of "solvers" is going to be the death knell for online poker unless it is somehow brought under control. This GlitchSystem guy exposed himself by being greedy, but he may well have been able to go undetected for a long time at lower stakes, while still making bank.

The technology is out there to make poker not a matter of consistently beating a game through skill, but a matter of simply investing in profitable tools and exploiting them. Most serious players care enough about the game to not destroy it like that, but as soon as you have software that tells you what to do, there's no need for actual poker players to be involved anymore. Some entrepreneur could set up a bank of "dream machines" and hire people to milk games all day long. If the technology gets stealthy enough, it could even be done with bots instead of humans. For all we know, it's happening already to some degree. The tech is out there, and we don't know who else has it.
 
For the levels most of us play, I'm not too concerned. But in terms of anyone having a high stakes online career. That dream has long sailed. Too much info too fast.

Even if people switch to other games, it's only a matter of time before they get solvers too. It will just take longer because more cards equals more complexity.

Live NLHE up to probably 5/10 maybe 10/20 will still be beatable for decent money. But online poker allowing so much data to be mined and so many hands to be played has effectively killed itself.

If online ever gets legalized in the US, there will be a short amount of time where the money will be good, but that will evaporate extremely quickly.
I agree for the most part. Most Huds are cheap or free though and the info they can supply can easily pay for itself even at low stakes. Is the info in a HUD stuff that a person with a great memory could effectively keep up with? Kinda... Solvers are a different animal though. I've personally been working on memorizing my positional ranges and anyone can do that but a program that can solve all the possible outcomes and hand ranges is game breaking.

There are ways these online poker places can block software usage and do so more effectively. The problem is some of these companies work directly with the online poker rooms.
 
I used to play online every day during the poker boom. Micro-stakes NLHE cash, low-stakes limit Hold'em, and occasional mixed games and STTs/MTTs.

After the big sites all got shut down, that was the end of it for me. I'm comfortable risking money at poker, but also risking it against the possibility of the site getting torn down and me having to beg the government for my online roll back? No thanks.

Now that public online poker has been around for a while and is slimmed down to mostly serious players, we're coming up on the additional problem of adept, systematic cheating (as opposed to sloppy opportunistic cheating from weak players). We have been coming across this on and off for years now, actually, and the number of cases that have been exposed should alarm anyone who plays online, since they likely only represent a fraction of total cheating instances.

It's bad enough for collusion to be so easy to carry out undetected. That's the main form of cheating I would expect to arise out of a game where the players can communicate so freely while in-game. But this new trend of "solvers" is going to be the death knell for online poker unless it is somehow brought under control. This GlitchSystem guy exposed himself by being greedy, but he may well have been able to go undetected for a long time at lower stakes, while still making bank.

The technology is out there to make poker not a matter of consistently beating a game through skill, but a matter of simply investing in profitable tools and exploiting them. Most serious players care enough about the game to not destroy it like that, but as soon as you have software that tells you what to do, there's no need for actual poker players to be involved anymore. Some entrepreneur could set up a bank of "dream machines" and hire people to milk games all day long. If the technology gets stealthy enough, it could even be done with bots instead of humans. For all we know, it's happening already to some degree. The tech is out there, and we don't know who else has it.
Any game like Chess, Checkers, or video games can have strategy guides that can make players better more quickly. There is still an element of skill in all of them though unless your rote memorization skill is amazing.

Playing NLHE with solver solutions available is like playing a non real time video game with a strategy guide open, or using a chess program to tell you your moves. In a competitive game (especially for money) it's "cheating." But it's similar to using an instruction manual to do something you don't know how to do. Some people are going to think it's not really cheating because the info is basically there for everyone to use if they want to put the time and money into it. It's an area that can be pretty gray.

I just think it's unethical. I like the discovery of games and trying to figure them out for myself. I'm not above using some help from time to time, but too often and the game starts to lose its appeal. Any time money becomes involved, the issue just becomes exacerbated.
 
unless it is somehow brought under control.
I don't see how you could ever get it under control. Even if every site bans all solvers, we're at a point now with machine learning and computer vision that you could point a camera at the screen and reliably gather enough information to run the software on an external system. Such technology might not be packaged in publicly available solvers yet (or it might be, I didn't check), but anyone with more than a casual understanding of software could throw together something workable today. Many of the components you need are available for free as open source and maintained by large companies (so they're not going away). It will only get easier as time goes on.

In short, if the information is transmitted on-screen, a 3rd party system can be made to see it.
 
I agree for the most part. Most Huds are cheap or free though and the info they can supply can easily pay for itself even at low stakes. Is the info in a HUD stuff that a person with a great memory could effectively keep up with? Kinda... Solvers are a different animal though. I've personally been working on memorizing my positional ranges and anyone can do that but a program that can solve all the possible outcomes and hand ranges is game breaking.

There are ways these online poker places can block software usage and do so more effectively. The problem is some of these companies work directly with the online poker rooms.
You really can't stop someone from doing what Kruse did. At best you can just detect patterns in mouse movement, decision making time, and bet sizing. And that's not exactly a foolproof method of detecting someone doing this. If he varied up his very sizes some at the cost of some EV, or was able to use both mice at the same time, etc, then it would be harder to detect.
 
What if players couldn't see hand histories anymore? What if only internal auditors could? It's not like we can get histories in live poker. If you suspect wrong doing, they can check the histories. This method has issues no doubt, but it's a thought.

I'm sure someone could create a program that still tracks that info though. But it would slow down the data flow I think.
 
I just don’t find online poker very interesting, as it removes most (if not all) of the observational, psychological and other personal skills or social elements which make live poker a rich experience.

During the pandemic, I have been playing (grudgingly) online, and winning at it. But I am playing exclusively with groups of people I previously played with face-to-face. One tourney (which goes off nightly) has a cast of about 30 players, maybe half of which show up for any given game, and I usually know 90% of them well; the others I at least know who they are.

This makes that particular online experience much closer to a live game, though of course with fewer tells. I don’t need to run a HUD because I know these players’ tendencies from years of playing with them (and presumably they know mine, though I notice some of them never learn). The main difference is that most of the regulars from our live game seem to play a bit looser and take more chances online than face-to-face. Maybe because it’s less embarrassing when you make a terrible play?

While studying HUD stats (let alone using a solver) can yield interesting observations, and occasionally some surprises, I really find it lame. Watching every hand, whether you’re in it or not, and remembering how people played certain types of hands from various positions and stack sizes, is part of the challenge of the game which separates good from bad players.

If everyone uses them, HUDs remove that skill edge from the game, except to the extent that some are better with reading and applying stats than others. To me, getting that data from a HUD feels like unearned insight. If you didn’t already notice yourself that the villain in your hand never 3bets pre except with AA/KK/QQ/AKs, then you didn’t earn that data point that they only cBet 2% of the time.
 
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What if players couldn't see hand histories anymore? What if only internal auditors could? It's not like we can get histories in live poker. If you suspect wrong doing, they can check the histories. This method has issues no doubt, but it's a thought.

I'm sure someone could create a program that still tracks that info though. But it would slow down the data flow I think.
Solvers would just gain the ability to track hand histories from the information displayed to every user.

It's not like we can get histories in live poker.
Not yet. I'm working on solving that, but that's a topic for a different thread... :D
 
Any time money becomes involved, the issue just becomes exacerbated.

Opportunistic (whether good intentions or more nefarious in mind) people flock to where the money can be made. If some big corporation put up a big prize pool for Rock Em Sock Em robots, there's going to be immediate planning, practice, and discussion to the tiniest minutiae by individuals / teams to make sure they have the biggest edge before the first punch is thrown.

Some entrepreneur could set up a bank of "dream machines" and hire people to milk games all day long. If the technology gets stealthy enough, it could even be done with bots instead of humans. For all we know, it's happening already to some degree. The tech is out there, and we don't know who else has it.

I think on some level most online players know this can occur or it is already happening. They either remain too stubborn to quit or they think they can actually beat the stable of GTO bots / Solver sluts.
 
The main difference is that most of the regulars from our live game seem to play a bit looser and take more chances online than face-to-face. Maybe because it’s less embarrassing when you make a terrible play?
I think it’s just less real. Kinda like how they say people are more gambly with chips than they would be with real cash? I think the same thing extends to online poker.
And there are the practical matters. Nobody had to drive any distance to get to this game, so getting knocked out doesn’t result in that long drive home. And unlike a home game, where you get knocked out and there’s nothing else to do, when you get knocked out of an online tournament, you often can just join another one. Or put the tv on. Or whatever. People just aren’t as invested in online tournaments as they are in love ones, so getting knocked out early isn’t as much of a concern, so they play looser.
 
I think it’s just less real. Kinda like how they say people are more gambly with chips than they would be with real cash? I think the same thing extends to online poker.
And there are the practical matters. Nobody had to drive any distance to get to this game, so getting knocked out doesn’t result in that long drive home. And unlike a home game, where you get knocked out and there’s nothing else to do, when you get knocked out of an online tournament, you often can just join another one. Or put the tv on. Or whatever. People just aren’t as invested in online tournaments as they are in love ones, so getting knocked out early isn’t as much of a concern, so they play looser.
All good points. Convenience plays a big role.

Plus that drive....that drive home after the cash game I just lost 5 bills on thinking of all the dumb plays I made...hands I chased...bluffs I pushed too far. Online I just click and its a whole new game!
 
I think it’s just less real. Kinda like how they say people are more gambly with chips than they would be with real cash? I think the same thing extends to online poker.
And there are the practical matters. Nobody had to drive any distance to get to this game, so getting knocked out doesn’t result in that long drive home. And unlike a home game, where you get knocked out and there’s nothing else to do, when you get knocked out of an online tournament, you often can just join another one. Or put the tv on. Or whatever. People just aren’t as invested in online tournaments as they are in love ones, so getting knocked out early isn’t as much of a concern, so they play looser.
In general I think online play has always erred a bit tighter. Even going back to the early-mid 2000s. It's just so easy to fold and see another hand. Live, people get bored more easily as it's slower, and they are much more cognizant of how many hands they have played.

The difference is volume. You just ran into way more terrible players online because there were just so many more of them. But really bad players are few and far between online, especially in the states obviously. Home game sites (Fox, Big dog, Bros, etc) during the pandemic were flooded with pretty bad players at the start, but they mostly got destroyed in short order. Now the "bad" players are either nits or people that err too aggressive. Both are beatable, but it's not done quickly.
 
I don't see how you could ever get it under control. Even if every site bans all solvers, we're at a point now with machine learning and computer vision that you could point a camera at the screen and reliably gather enough information to run the software on an external system. Such technology might not be packaged in publicly available solvers yet (or it might be, I didn't check), but anyone with more than a casual understanding of software could throw together something workable today. Many of the components you need are available for free as open source and maintained by large companies (so they're not going away). It will only get easier as time goes on.

In short, if the information is transmitted on-screen, a 3rd party system can be made to see it.
All sites have banned solvers as far as I know.

The kind of setup you're talking about wouldn't exactly be viable for the .50/1.00 game I like to play lol. You're talking very high stakes and if you're playing online poker for those high stakes you're playing with fire anyway in my book.

Solvers can't play the whole game for you though, they're not fast enough. Technology has advanced but not near that much.
 
All sites have banned solvers as far as I know.

The kind of setup you're talking about wouldn't exactly be viable for the .50/1.00 game I like to play lol. You're talking very high stakes and if you're playing online poker for those high stakes you're playing with fire anyway in my book.

Solvers can't play the whole game for you though, they're not fast enough. Technology has advanced but not near that much.

From the 2+2 thread, it appears the solves were completed ahead of time and compiled into a massive database

Edited to add: real time solvers are a huge edge and that’s why poker sites have gone to lengths to scan for them
 
From the 2+2 thread, it appears the solves were completed ahead of time and compiled into a massive database

Edited to add: real time solvers are a huge edge and that’s why poker sites have gone to lengths to scan for them
It's only a matter of time before a real time solver that approximates a good enough answer exists. Really, all you need is a database and a program that can scan the database. It doesn't have to solve in real time. Just have enough data from previous solves with solutions of X amount of accuracy.
 
Welp, count me out of online cash games. Yikes


Through our upgraded detection methods, we have discovered a small group of RTA users on GGPN. We have taken immediate action on those accounts as we continue to develop our processes. The measures we have taken are commensurate to the frequency and severity of RTA use.

  • 13 accounts have been banned and $1,175,305.43 confiscated (to be returned to players)
  • 27 accounts have been banned with no confiscation
  • 40 accounts have been issued warnings



https://en.ggpoker.com/blog/news-headlines/battle-against-rta/
 
Through our upgraded detection methods, we have discovered a small group of RTA users on GGPN. We have taken immediate action on those accounts as we continue to develop our processes. The measures we have taken are commensurate to the frequency and severity of RTA use.

  • 13 accounts have been banned and $1,175,305.43 confiscated (to be returned to players)
  • 27 accounts have been banned with no confiscation
  • 40 accounts have been issued warnings

Does this mean that the other 67 accounts were not making money? Certainly a strong indication that the 27 accounts banned without confiscation were not.
 

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