Poker Bots: Giving Them a Taste of Their Own Medicine

At first they were only spotted sporadically in the shadier corners of Macau, but lately they have become common even in Las Vegas. I’m talking, of course, about poker bots – mechanical monsters who roam casinos around the world disguised as ordinary poker players. They can read minds, calculate exact odds and thrive on pain and bad beats.

Early poker bots were fairly easy to spot – you could identify them by looking for extra legs and antennas protruding from their armpits. Also, they didn’t wear clothes, faces or other typically human features.

These days, however, we are up against something far more sinister. Poker bots look almost human, sort of like Gus Hansen, and have infiltrated even lower-end limit holdem venues like Gold Coast. But you can be sure that underneath that seemingly harmless and presumably mildly retarded exterior lurks a vicious predator with a heart of ice-cold titanium alloy. It won’t hesitate to go after your ill-gotten bankroll in order to give it to their masters, who I suspect might be space pirates.



To counter this threat, I am currently building a small army of Cyborg Killbots enhanced with brains from great white sharks. I’m proud to say that they have proven themselves in field testing so far – taking out more than 12 presumed poker bots. The key to taking out poker bots is to act fast. When you suspect that you could be facing one you mustn’t hesitate. Considerable collateral damage is of course inevitable, but a small price to pay to free ourselves from threats to my bankroll.