Call of Duty: Modern Bot Warfare

Thanks for the kind words and great questions!

1 & 2) I come from a sports background. Most recently, I pursued competitive powerlifting, bodybuilding, and Brazilian jiujitsu. To be honest, the discipline of your average journeyman bodybuilder would put the average poker player to complete and utter shame. Even the most mediocre bodybuilders stick to a rigid diet, training schedule, and have great sleep hygiene. If you can just find a poker player who can do the same for several years, they'll probably be winners at mid-stakes if they have the requisite intelligence.

I'd say the trait that is most important is being able to live a structured, scheduled life. If a guy can study, play, wake up, and go to sleep at consistent intervals for years on end, he's already gone a long way towards having a massive edge over the average poker player. For me, the "discipline" required to study and play poker regularly is a massive downgrade in difficulty from what I was used to in sports. That made the transition really, really easy. People sometimes ask me how I work so hard/work so much. The boring truth is that I have a schedule and I stick to it. That's pretty much the long and short of it. When it is time to do what I wrote down on my schedule, I don't procrastinate or scroll social media; I just do the thing I wrote down on my schedule. You'd be amazed at just how far that one thing gets you with a couple years of dedicated effort.

3) I would focus on WR ahead of volume. I've been that guy putting in 50k+ hands per month with a 1-3bb WR and that not is NOT a fun existence as a poker player. It is much better to find conditions under which you can actually win 4-5bb/100 and then optimize volume from there... which you do by seeing how high you can go before this WR drops too significantly. If your A game isn't good enough to win that much at your current stakes, I'd be focusing on getting better -- not playing heaps.

4) GTO Wizard in my opinion! Expensive these days, though... sheesh.

I have been taking the past week to speed run the completion of the anti-bot tools for Nacho's CFP that I mentioned in my New Year's goal list. I should be back at the tables in another 7-10 days, tops. Still, I couldn't resist updating the blog to share that I have been officially promoted to the Head Ignition Coach for Nacho's. Of course, nothing much as really changed because I've already been functioning in that role for several months now.

Nevertheless, I was happy to see the team do so well in my first official month of taking over the reigns:
+6.9 EV bb/100 across 327k hands

Only 2 Players had losing months:

GLGL with the grind fellas! I'll be back with my own January results soon enough.

WAGMI

Gongrats for the new position (Assistant to the regional manager)

Good luck sir! What do you think is the main thing that sets apart Nachos from other stables? Here’s to a big 2026!

GL GL
Can you share what's your typical schedule is like? How can you put 300h hours in? Do you also have very structured study plan?

Hopefully this is not too many questions.

lmao! Thank you!

Thank you and likewise!

As a whole, the data-based approach is what separates us from other stables for sure. We're able to impart simple, actionable heuristics that are extremely effective against Fish and the average reg. This massively simplifies the game tree for the average player while increasing WR and aggression. Feeling like you "know what to do" for a larger range of spots prevents players from defaulting to emotional decisions -- especially when running really bad/good.

As far as Ignition, as far as I know, we're really the only major stable winning on Ignition. We're winning 5+ EV bb/100... pre-rakeback. And that's as a group. That's not because we have some superstars dragging the average up. Again, ultimately, our edge starts with data, but we do things that your average reg just cannot do in anonymous pool because of the scale at which we operate. Most players have left Ignition because of the rampant bot problem.... we took hundreds of thousands from them in 2025 and this is with only a handful of 2k players. We have 6 different profiles that we've developed MDA-based strategies against in this pool alone. We have exploits against all of them. Unlike a known pool, where every player has *some* data on each opponent, we, as a group, have 1mil+ hands against multiple player types. No one has the same type of data against us. I think the degree of edge this affords us speaks for itself in terms of WR.

I'm sure I sound like I'm bragging or giving a sales pitch, but, again, as far as I know, no one is even close to being able to provide the type of resources we provide our players on Ignition. We have an anti-bot HUD specifically designed for our Ignition players, a H2N4 config with 40k+ stats specifically designed to uncover bot exploits (and other player types, too). We have 3+ million hands of data for our players to work with. The only similar products on the market, such as Mobius 2.0 Stat Checker for example, cost $1000usd and has about 10-20% of the stats that ours has. There's basically just nothing on the market that compares to our suite of resources... which we are continuously updating and improving.

I know how that comes across, but those are the facts. I am very proud of our Ignition group and feel no shame whatsoever in propping them up.

Definitely not too many questions!

My ratio of play has fluctuated widely throughout my time playing poker. Initially, I studied in a 3-4:1 ratio with play. Now, that's probably reversed. Most of my current study time is spent doing MDA or building tools to do better MDA, lol. However, I still look at all pots where I won or lost 3+bb. This is a particularly valuable practice on Ignition because, after 24 hours, we have access to clairvoyant hand histories and we can see what hands all players had.

Currently, I play 6 days and my sessions average 6 hours or so. I spent about 60-90 minutes reviewing hands every day. I host an hour long strategy call weekly for the Ignition team. I also create daily content that ranges from simple exploits to in-depth reports on pool tendencies. Creating this Ignition-specific content takes up multiple hours per day.

As I look to establish myself at high stakes later this year, particularly 2k, the ratios are going to change pretty significantly again. I will be seeking out high stakes coaching and spending way, way more time on theory. I've spent almost no time on theory whatsoever in the past 3 months whereas, in the past, I spent 2-4 hours daily on theory study.

If I had to give an estimate of what my weekly breakdown is, it would look like this:
~40-45 hours playing including warm-up, cooldown, and blogging/journaling
~10-15 hours of MDA/research and Ignition content creation including building tools, writing articles, making videos, and hosting group calls
~7-10 hours of CV reviews

These days, I do *try* to keep my total daily time spent working on poker at closer to 8-10 hours than 10-12, but there are definitely times where I just work at my computer all day long except for a few hours per night that I spend with my wife.

No that doesn’t come across as bragging at all tbh: it does seem to be a existential threat and I’m not surprised that the main way to defeat is inordinate amounts of data and studying counters against them. This is really good news actually that it is possible!

Do they rarely adjust then due to the anonymous nature or do you think they wouldn’t adapt even in known name pools?

Sadly, not only do they adjust in known pools, they seem to do so extremely effectively as well.

They adjust even in our anonymous pool on Ignition, but, obviously, the adjustments are quite broad, generally. One of the bot profiles does this extremely well. The "bad bots" go way, way too far and over-adjust which makes them both hyper-exploitative and hyper-exploitable, lol.

Basically you’re saying ironically due to their lack of data on you guys that you capitalise off of the mistakes that they make adjusting to you? Honestly that is hilarious I love it 😀

It is an interesting dynamic. They adjust to the pool as a whole. As long as they're winning overall, we're no more than a parasite to them, essentially. Oh, you guys took 100k off of us? That's cute. We're up millions in this pool on the year.

Done!

I will be back at the tables later this week. I have decided to stop playing 200nl and move up to 1knl. I will split my volume equally between 500nl and 1knl going forward. I am giving myself a 20 BI stop-loss at 1k. Ultimately, I just don't see any world where I can't beat 1k for 1/5th the rate that I beat 200nl.

One thing that does jump out at me is that I seem to developed some kind of aggression leak in the last month or so. I'd like to try and identify what is going on before resuming the games.

500nl:

200nl:

Maybe it is just as simple as the extended run bad leading to conservative play, but I am a bit concerned about it. In any case, I'm going to audit the last 3 months of my DB and see what turns up.

After that... an extended shot at 1k starting at the end of this week. Pretty excited and feeling very confident this shot lands.

glgl with your grind, fellas!
WAGMI

1/15: +59bb, +$393

Tracker:

January:

Session Debrief:
The plan was to split volume between 1k and 500 today, but, for technical reasons, I couldn't get my HUD to work at 1k. I'll have that fixed before the next session and I'm hoping that this is the very last 200nl session that I ever play. We'll see.

Just a shorty of a session, but I felt pretty much zero rust. Probably helps that I was building stats and doing MDA for 10 hours a day the past two weeks instead of just chilling at the pool (pool, lol, it is below freezing here).

Still, after this session, the overwhelming feeling I have is that I need to get better. The level that I'm currently operating at is not even close to what is possible for me and that is something that is bothering me more and more with each passing day.

I'll keep working, ��*♂️

Also, Patrick has released a new video on YT highlighting some of the things we are doing against bots. Check it out if you're so inclined:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqoIVH2_...

GLGL with your grind fellas!
WAGMI

Loving the frequent updates, keep it up!

Just curious, you mentioned 1knl bots earning 5-6bb/100, is that primarily because the anonymous pool prevents regulars from counter exploiting them? Seems like the bots will need to be using massive deviations to hit such a win rate at 1knl

The bots that win at that rate are playing extremely, extremely solid. When you run their stats through a stat checker, you rarely find major deviations. It's basically just the result of playing strategies that humans cannot play: correctly balancing 2-3+ RFI sizes in their preflop strategy, 4-6 balanced bet sizes on every street, and a perfect blend of theory+MDA in every single line. The "bad" bots are hyperexploitative and subject to massive counterexploitation, but the average reg cannot take advantage of this without fairly significant amounts of data. Even with 1mil+ hands on the "good" bots, we aren't much better than BE against them. The "bad" bots lose to us at about the same rate as a nit-fish.

As for the "good" 1knl bots, they're basically super players. There's only so much you can do. We have a few spots where they get super OOL that we are capable of exploiting, but, yeah, it's just not much different than playing a world class reg. The further away you get from a situation that can be modeled in GTO, the worse they play. So there is that. Obviously, I can't get too much into any of the specifics, but suffice it to say that we can minimize losses to the "good" bots, crush the bad bots for about 1/3rd rate we beat Fish, and just generally hold our own while trying to wait for tables with fish. That's why we are still winning 5+ EV bb/100 as a team on Ignition in 2025+. Still, it's worth noting that this was closer to 9 EV bb/100 in 2024. The bots have gotten better. We are in a war to try and stay ahead for long as possible. It's a punch, counter-punch kind of situation. Recently, we've been winning the majority of the exchanges, but who knows what happens with the next major update, you know?

Oof that's scary, with 3*6^3 nodes it seems the best bots are impossible for human to beat even if we can somehow deannonymize them

We've definitely already reached the point where bots can play better than any human ever could, yeah. I don't think it is all gloom and doom, though. For one, they bots are still attempting to be exploitative to win more money. If they try to exploit, there will always be counterexploits. Second, it is questionable whether some of the bots are actually there to win the max to begin with... Some of them sure do seem like they just exist to generate action (and thus rake). I'm not going to make any formal accusations, but you do have to wonder why certain sites seem to do... nothing to get rid of them while others take it very seriously. I happen to know for a fact these bot operators sell "action bots" to poker clubs on apps all the time. Would a major room stoop to that level? IDK, but it isn't impossible.

1/16: +172bb, +$1336

Tracker:

January:

Today:

Session Debrief:
I feel no difference between 1k and 500nl. I have no anxiety playing for $1000 stacks. I have zero doubts about this shot being successful.

****ing "good bots", though. Over the next month or two, every spare second I have is going to go towards cracking their code. I think they're a lot more exploitable than I initially thought during my first attempt at creating a vs "good bot" playbook.

I don't see any reason that I can't beat 1knl at a similar rate to what I was beating 500nl. I mean, really, I see no reason at all that it isn't possible. All I have to do is remain disciplined with my table selection and start focusing more on counterexploiting "good bots". I truly believe that.

Because the "bad bots" largely aren't a thing at 500+, although I oddly had a few tonight at 1knl, I can let that part of my poker brain atrophy. The full weight of my focus is now going to shift towards beating the "good bots".

In a few months time, we're going to have positive WR vs. these ****ers. Wait and see.

GLGL with your grind, fellas!
WAGMI

1/17: +551bb, +$1836

Tracker:

Month:

Day:

Session Debrief:
Played quite poorly at 1k against Fish today. Just didn't adjust well to a specific profile who took a full buy-in off me across 50-100 hands. 60/0/0 type player with 5% bet flop, 10% bet turn, 10% bet river. Yeah, one of those. I just couldn't find the folds against the constant barrage of min-raises with the nuts (and only the nuts). Really annoyed with myself.

On the other hand, don't recall making many mistakes at 500 during the entire session and the results sort of reflect that, �� .

If anyone expects me to feel bad about running a little hot after what happened last month, I can you assure you're in the wrong place. That ain't happenin' partner.

Weekend is just getting started so here's to another 10+ hours with asses in chairs before Monday, yeah?

GLGL with your grind, fellas!
WAGMI

Have you seen this? Always imagined the ignition botters to be more sophisticated

https://x.com/martin_zamani/status/20126...

I don't think this is the Ignition bot ring that runs the "good" bots and "bad" bots, tbh. I think this is an MTT grind house collusion setup.

# 1/18: -$2967, -589bb

Tracker:

January:

Today:

Session Debrief:
Well, that sucked ass. Haven't had a day that bad in as long as I can remember. Hopefully we aren't returning to running several buy-ins under every session again.

I need to add a new quitting rule: when I lose my last fish at 1k, it's time to stop the session. If I keep playing because of Fish at 500, it gets to the point where I literally have ZERO 1k tables. Games just completely dead. Done.

And I need to get to bed earlier anyway. I've heard sleep is important which is why I sleep almost every day.

At least I got this Royal Flush:

(this is a demo version of our HUD which hides many important details that would reveal how we identify each bot profile, but you can still get an idea of what our custom anti-bot HUD is like)

I am hoping this was a "good" bot, but there's a small chance it was a reg that was doing very similar stuff to "good bots".

I'll just go on believing it was a dirty, rotten, rat bastard bot and that I did God's work here.

(Vil had AQo)

Also, I get a $200 bonus for this apparently. I'm trying to collect it right now, lol.

Anyway, try to bounce back next session and, you know, suck less at poker.

GLGL with your grind!
WAGMI

Keep it up! 😀

This train ain't stopping any time soon!

1/19: +$2459, +439bb

Tracker:

January:

Today:

Session Debrief:

Two things:

1) I am trying to be more mindful about hourly when deciding when I want to quit my session. In the past, I've refused to quit so long as I had a good Fish at any of my tables. I persisted with this even when the games were basically dead besides that one table with a decent/good Fish. I am not going to do that anymore. It's perfectly fine for me to drop down to 100-125 hours per month from 125-150 hours if it means I'm losing the least profitable hours. I have infinity off-table work to do these days to support the CFP. I have more ideas for what I think are massively +EV projects than I have time for actual development and execution. Grinding out $25-50 hours is just not smart anymore.

2) I haven't found my footing at 1k yet.

Finding spots to be aggressive comes very naturally to me, but, as a result, and I think this is common, I tend to overcall. The type of mindset that leads to aggression often leads towards not believing others. Trying to divorce my calling ranges from what I, personally, would bluff in a given spot is really hard. I'll continue to work on it.

3k hands is obviously jack **** in terms of a sample as well. Still, I think there are a few micro & macro meta adjustments that I need to clock and I haven't yet. I need to see more hands.

/dear diary

Thanks for reading, lol.

GLGL with your grind!
WAGMI

Terrific blog OP. With your thoughts and consistency I know you're destined to crush 1k+...truly inspiring. Keep pushing!

I recently moved over to Ignition after killing Stake for a while up to 200NL(and some 500NL shots) but they just closed to Cali. Ignition is way different, got my head beat in. Kudos to you for killing it there.

Keep seeing the Ignition/Bovada bot farm video and thought of this thread. Guess it was MTTs in the vid but def in cash too. Glad to see some "good guys" taking money off of em! Keep up the good work and updates!

Thanks man! Always nice to read some positivity on the internet. No giving up in here!

200nl on Ignition is one of the best value propositions in online poker right now. I truly believe that... but you really do need SOME basic understanding of what the bots are doing. You absolutely should not start at 500nl. That is populated mainly by "good bots" and they can easily take your lunch if you don't have some data on your side.

Feel free to hit me up on Discord anytime if you want some guidance on Ignition.

1/22: -30bb, +$667

Tracker:

January:

Today:

Session Debrief:
Well, the games have been **much**better than expected at 1k to start this shot off. Unfortunately, my level of play has also been much **worse** than anticipated relative to the other human players. It feels as if I've gone from winning the vast, vast majority of reg-on-reg exchanges to now being on the losing end more often than not.

I know that I (obviously) need to build a much larger sample before arriving at a judgment, but it is getting increasingly harder for me to shake the idea that I'm both:

* a) currently not good enough to beat 1k for a healthy WR (5+ EV bb/100)

and

* b) not spending enough time on actually becoming a better poker player instead of a bot researcher/coach

While I've had a lot of off-table success lately, which is very cool, and I'm super appreciative of all that comes with it, my primary goal remains to become a high stakes crusher. I have zero, and I mean zero, interest in allowing that aim to become a secondary focus. If this shot fails, I will absolutely reverse course (to some degree) and fully immerse myself back into skill development.

At the end of the day, you either perform or you don't. Winners win. Losers lose. I know which category I belong in and whenever I'm veering off track, my central heating kicks in and brings the temperature back to where it should be... And it's getting pretty close to kicking back into full gear here.

Anyway, as always fellas, GLGL with your grind!
WAGMI

1/23: -$832, -120bb

Tracker:

January:

Today:

Session Debrief:
Me (to myself) AF right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y94uumr9...

I played well enough today, but my results at 1k continue to be... ****. They're **** this month. They're **** lifetime. I'll keep blasting, though, ��*♂️

Dog of the Day for positivity purposes (hint: there is only ever candidates for dog of the day; also, I own two dogs)

GLGL with your grind fellas!
WAGMI

I'll take a bot over a reg any day. When I first read this I was like, this mf bots. But then I thought if I had a number on all the bots I would want it to myself too

Well, here's something to consider... the edge we have over bots is not binary, but rather a matter of degree. 1bb/100 edge? 2bb/100 edge? 10bb/100 edge?

If I had a 50mil hand DB to work with, I promise you my edge would be much greater than it is currently. So it's really not as straight forward as: share bot info, bad. Keep to self, good. I am not talking about bots purely for the community's benefit. I have something to gain as well. I don't even pretend otherwise. I think we all understand that and don't mind as long as everyone wins. Well, not everyone -- just the human players, lol.

# 1/24: +448bb, +$4446

Tracker:

January

Today:

Session Debrief

ASS IN THE CHAIR.
CLICK THE DAMN BUTTONS.

Dog of the Day:

GLGL with your grind, boys!
WAGMI