Botfarm won $10 Million on WPN
Monitoring the development and profitability of poker bots has become an increasingly challenging task.
Below are my findings related to the bots identified on the Winning Poker Network (WPN).
Botfarm Total Multi-Table Tournament (MTT) Graph:
Botfarm 2023 Year MTT Results:
Botfarm Cash Games NL400+ Since April 1, 2023:
The issue of bot proliferation has been recognized for at least 3.5 years, as discussed in this Botfarm forum thread.
Despite submitting comprehensive reports to the WPN, which unfortunately went unanswered from their security team, I harbor no illusions that they will address the problem. The security service has let down the player community. Therefore, I am reaching out to poker schools, funds, and independent players.
I urge you to examine the hands played by these bots in cash games and MTTs this year, analyze their strategies in training sessions, and actively combat them at the tables. In many games, they constitute a significant portion of the player field, ranging from 5% to 15%.
https://mega.nz/file/tuJwgYYI#2WVRTQ2BB9... - MTT Hands
https://mega.nz/file/0rQzzSZY#WGXy0n1-w4... - Cash Hands
Here are the aliases for Hand2Note 3 that I have compiled. However, I encourage you to verify and draw your own conclusions.
https://mega.nz/file/FuowxARL#7MLoYSwjqx... - Aliases
Currently, Botfarm evolve approximately every 3 months but still employ exploitative tactics, allowing to push back. Given their ability to create over 100+ new accounts per month, eradicating them requires multiple waves of blocking, not just a single sweep. This issue is not exclusive to WPN; evidence suggests that Ignition and GG Poker are already affected. While I lack data from all platforms, it is certain that they will infiltrate wherever there is a lucrative game.
In the end I would like to say that poker is a game of people with each other, not the machines. Interference by machines disrupts the essence of poker. If any room management believes that regular players can be replaced by machines - you are mistaken. In such a scenario, the game would inevitably dwindle or even cease to exist, reaching an untenable scale.
List of MTT Nicknames Part 1:
List of MTT Nicknames Part 2:
List of Cash NL400+ Nicknames:
The part missing from the “you deserve to get cheated on grey market sites” take is that online poker was still very beatable up until relatively recently. Almost all of my public site volume was ignition, but I’m a lifetime 7.5bb/100 winner playing stakes from 200nl to 1k. There was a substantial increase in sketchy activity starting fall 2022 coinciding with a drop in the fish:reg ratio. I’m sure there was cheating before that point, but it was at least countered enough that games were still profitable. You can make a fine living off $150+/hr.
It’s seems like sometime around that point the sites just gave up. I was seeing guys timebank every single decision point across multiple tables from obvious RTA usage. I used to have access to the security team through my agent, but he was dropped (with my rakeback) earlier that year. When I tried to contact the security team directly and post the issue in their site forums the response was basically “recs like our timebank system”. Pay no attention to that fish leaving because hands are moving at half normal speed….
There was always a bit of a black box regarding site decisions, but pre 2022 I found site security personnel to be articulate and competent. I have multiple guys in my network who received 4 figure refund checks and my account personally went through verification more than once. After mid 2022 it’s a mix of complete silence with the occasional clueless interaction. Site representatives who don’t even understand the concept of a solver database and just read off their customer service script. I don’t understand what happened. Why did the sites just give up? My conspiracy take is that this has something to do with the chronic ddos attacks occurring in the preceding few years, but I guess the obvious answer is they see security as a non revenue generating department and just stopped investing in it.
I’m completely aware online sites will never be 100% safe, I just want the sites to try again. I’ll be fine as long as the most egregious forms of cheating are held at bay.
The part missing from the “you deserve to get cheated on grey market sites” take is that online poker was still very beatable up until relatively recently. Almost all of my public site volume was ignition, but I’m a lifetime 7.5bb/100 winner playing stakes from 200nl to 1k. There was a substantial increase in sketchy activity starting fall 2022 coinciding with a drop in the fish:reg ratio. I’m sure there was cheating before that point, but it was at least countered enough that games were still p
I basically agree 100%. I went back and was looking through the Bovada thread and it was late 2022 and ramping up through all of 2023 where many regs were saying something was different. This also coincided with Ontario pulling out of the market, though.
So glad that people mentioned about nl50 blitz bots, they were the ones that were the most obvious thing. Me myself have played about 20k+ hands against nearly everyone of them, i am 100% sure they were not humans, given the data collected during 2-3 years of diffrent periods playing with them. If needed i hope the community can bring even bigger sample so everything could be as clear as anyone woulde like to see. All i want is to talk to any of the ACR security/storemer/representative on a live stream to prove and talk about it in open Public conservation - what can go wrong ACR? We as the community want to fight for out rights.
I think sites should ban every russian, ukrainan, belarus, kazakstan player.
Sound very extreme , but they are the ones causing all this, and its been years. Sorry for all the honest players from these countries but I am sure they have some poker online sites in East Europe.
Let's get rid of all of them . Enough is enough.
I think sites should ban every russian, ukrainan, belarus, kazakstan player.
Sound very extreme , but they are the ones causing all this, and its been years. Sorry for all the honest players from these countries but I am sure they have some poker online sites in East Europe.
Let's get rid of all of them . Enough is enough.
This doesn't solve the issue, it just removes one small hurdle for them. It's likely the same people botting/colluding on ignition and they don't accept players from those countries already.
can you go into detail exactly which type of plays were done exclusively by the bots and link the HH?
Here you can have some live clips, nice sample of inhouse bots
Here you can have some live clips, nice sample of inhouse bots
HAHA! Yes! This exactly, and of course they are among the accounts I have listed.
Botting is one thing but the collusion is a where **** gets real.
I would constantly call those preflop SB/BB squeeze and resqueeze with basically any K high as they would always show up with completely random cards.
Here you can have some live clips, nice sample of inhouse bots
Hmm that second hand had me thinking... I saw the hands of 3 or 4 players on the MTT list and two of them did 2 weird plays with 85 ( an Open Shove MP with 9 bb and a massive overbet lead vs a limp on 953 like 9 or 10 x pot bb vs MP). Is there something weird in the pixels of the cards? could 85 lead to bots misreading their hand or something? Am I being an idiot ?(probably?)
Unless they had the read that you were exploiting their 3b 4b shenanigans but why do it with 85? wtf
This doesn't solve the issue, it just removes one small hurdle for them. It's likely the same people botting/colluding on ignition and they don't accept players from those countries already.
Agree. Someone listing locations on the wpn accounts is a great example why it wouldn't work. I do think however could make more due diligence. It happens surprisingly often that:
1) complete nonamer shows up at the highest stakes that no one ever heard of and plays incredibly well 15 hours per day. It seems like sites treat someone known like Linus exactly the same as someone who didn't play any live or any other sites (including local/segregated ones). This would also not only catch cheaters but catch bot farms that just make 20 new accounts when they get caught.
2) People that are knowingly banned on other sites don't get looked into fast enough. Last year a known former stars regular showed up on acr, he was banned on every site including stars and even apps. On the apps he was caught playing multiple accounts on same tables. I reported him the first week (as did many others) he stayed around for 7-8 months and won approximately 600k pre rakeback.
It's absurd you can create a brand new account and jump into the highest games and crush with no questions ask wether it's gg, acr, igniting or any site for that matter.
I think sites should ban every russian, ukrainan, belarus, kazakstan player.
Sound very extreme , but they are the ones causing all this, and its been years. Sorry for all the honest players from these countries but I am sure they have some poker online sites in East Europe.
Let's get rid of all of them . Enough is enough.
Nah, i know some fishes from those countrys and I don't want to lose my beloved clients.
User, just cash out everything we still have from ACR. The bots keep playing, and I'm at a loss for words.
Hmm that second hand had me thinking... I saw the hands of 3 or 4 players on the MTT list and two of them did 2 weird plays with 85 ( an Open Shove MP with 9 bb and a massive overbet lead vs a limp on 953 like 9 or 10 x pot bb vs MP). Is there something weird in the pixels of the cards? could 85 lead to bots misreading their hand or something? Am I being an idiot ?(probably?)
Unless they had the read that you were exploiting their 3b 4b shenanigans but why do it with 85? wtf
85s used to be their fav hand 😃 but they got new patch in october and fix it
I also have decided to stop playing on ACR , i played mostly stud8 which i figured was isolated from bots but i did notice some bot like activity recently. while i cant confirm it was a bot, it definitely had weird lines and would only play heads up and auto sit when a third player would show. if someone could run this players stats . its a pretty small universe that plays stud 8 but this stayalive player was definitely doing weird things and i dont think i ever saw it play ring .
And regarding the issue that ACR doesn't detect these bots, I can't believe it from this point on. These are house bots or a company working with ACR. These bots play so obviously together that even a beginner can immediately recognize them.
Let's try this again.
Edit: Guess not. Here then;
https://twitter.com/JNandezPoker/status/...
Just watched the latest solve4why and Berkey made a comment about most or all the bots playing are on a skin called poker King which is a Russian owned skin. So why not just kick poker King off the network
Crazy what some basic googling finds... Would their "bot detection" catch something like this?
I remember partypoker said if you were watching porn on your computer they’d know, so I’m guessing it’s either periodically or constantly screenshotting your computer so it knows everything? unsure
The scariest thing is none of the listed people came to defend themselves, if i were accused of using anything illegal i would for sure try to prove i do not cheat, just shows how accurate the list is. Good job Tyler.
You're going to have to sift through the Bovada thread, but in general since late 2022/early 2023 there have been many posters with a significant amount of people coming forward with their concerns as 2023 continued. You can browse the latest few pages for a general idea.
I play enough volume I can tell you the day. December 7th, 2022. Switched from 10b/100 to -2.5bb/100.
Here you can have some live clips, nice sample of inhouse bots
this is extremely weak evidence man, i've seen similar plays from 100% human players, some people just go insane and punt off.
Also the theory that the first clip is collusion doesnt even make sense, why the **** would the sb try to make bb fold pre-flop with a fake overlimp/3bet when he knows his collusion partner in MP has KK? if anything he doesnt want to scare bb to get the most money preflop.
Still catching up on thread but huge ACR reg here.
I ran into a very very suspect hand last night -- and lo and behold, when checking the 2+2 thread, the user in question is on the list.
take a look at this HH. this was also DURING The rebuy period , meaning the villain (Reintent) could have just rebought. Instead, he folded to my push and saved behind less than 5 BB.
If that's not bot behavior, I don't know what is....seems almost like some kind of rule wasn't met and it folded incorrectly.. i dont think any human would actually make this play...but I would love any and all opinions, obviously any play is theoretically possible, but this one really had me thinking and the fact that the user is listed on the 2+2 thread really has me thinking