Call of Duty: Modern Bot Warfare

1/25: -$2603, -247bb

Tracker:

January:

Today:

Session Debrief:
I usually hate when people say this, but, honestly, I think I am playing pretty well... (famous last words). I haven't had any sustained good run in a long while now. Historically, I am not a losing/BE blue line player. Maybe still finding a few too many calls against this pool. I backed off a bit on my folding trigger finger lately against perceived human players and I am really not sure that is proving to be the right call. That's the hard part about bluff-catching though: the brain doesn't correctly perceive the value of bluff catching because you can be wrong the majority of the time and the math still maths.

My 500 WR is about half of what it usually is and the games haven't been half the normal quality.

Half a month of playing, half a month of results. You get out what you put in, really.

Anyway, not super concerned, let me check back in when I have 100k+ hands at 1000nl (I have 6k this month, lol).

Thank you for tolerating my whiny bullshit. Here’s a puppy begging for your troubles:

As always, glgl with your grind!
WAGMI

1/26: +$1743, +122bb

Tracker:

January:

Today:

Session Debrief:
Just waiting for a little hot streak where my blue line takes off for a stretch and make *all* the monies.

A man can dream.

GLGL with your grind!
WAGMI

Half of my goals for the year done before the end of Month 1,

Curious what percentage of the pool do you think are bots still? Has this gone up or down since you first started playing on ignition?

It has been a relatively stable ~2 bots per table the whole time.

At 1k/2k, it gets worse, though, because (what appear to be human) players also RTA.

How many do you think there are on other sites?

Well, they're clearly on GG and WPN. Nachos has players on those sites and they report them there as well. The problems aren't as bad there, though. I wouldn't be comfortable putting an estimate on anything for rooms that I haven't been playing in or investigating.

I think, in general, there is a direct correlation between how rigorous a room's KYC policies are and how bad their bot problem is. When you add an anonymous element, which takes away the ability of whistleblowers to out specific accounts, you take any existing issue and make it worse. So, with Ignition, you just get the nut worst conditions for preventing bot rings taking root.

GG and WPN both get rid of them once they know about them, iggy doesn’t care, maybe even have a %

Yeah, I tend to agree. I think there's a really good chance some of the bots work for the house on Iggy.

If it's not too much work, do you mind pulling the general stats of the good bots at 500+? Wondering how they're deviating from GTO and if they are similar play style to a "redline warrior"

I remember back when I played on ACR, the bots were stabbing like 80% IP vs a check. Ever since I noticed, I also started stabbing a ton too lol and it worked really well

I am willing to show this much:

They are not redline warriors. They are theoretical beasts that deviate only in very specific spots.

1/29: +$1530 +148bb

Tracker:

January:

Today:

Session Debrief:
I am having a bit of trouble toggling between the metas at 500nl and 1knl. This the worst results I've had at 500nl in ages and it is almost all from calling down too much against a pool that I really, really don't have to give much credit to. I'll fix it.

8k in 60 hours? Not bad for an absolutely pedestrian 16k hands. Can't have volume this low again this year if I want to achieve 500k hands and 1500 grind hours, though. Not like it wasn't worth it... We were able to bring on six new students to the Nachos (at least -- still one very big addition coming, 😉 ) and the HH exchange is practically growing daily now that the first ice breakers got through.

Shout out to Marinelli for (unintentionally?) challenging me to stop playing 200nl and just move up to 1knl. Oddly, I really enjoy the challenge of playing there more than the super, duper heavy bot exploitation style that you need to play at 200nl. I am actually using things that I studied in the solver again. I actually play poker... sometimes. Let's not get carried away. Still pretty much a 1:1 human:bot ratio out in the 1k streets.

Feeling very good about the state of Nachos right now. Feeling proud about my contributions to that state as well.

I'm pretty "meh" about my actual poker, but that's probably just because I am a crusty ass who can't seem to find satisfaction in anything less than 10+ EV/bb 100, lol.

I'll shut up now.

GLGL with your grinds!
WAGMI

# 2/1: -$1620, -108bb

Tracker:

Month:

Session Debrief:
Biggest losing pot ever, lol

Final January Results:

1k Shot Results (so far):

Just from a raw, objective, financial perspective, I am not playing enough and doing too much off-table work. I am a key part of the engine that drives a lot of the Ignition anti-bot work forward for Nacho's, but, frankly, I make much more money actually playing than I do as a coach/shareholder for Nacho's. I need to make sure I limit off-table work to hours of the day/days of the week that game conditions are not good. If I am going to be working seven days a week, I should never be sacrificing any of the high EV hours to be doing research, building strategies, doing admin, general business, etc.

This is an issue of prioritization and scheduling more than anything. I can easily manage both. I just need to increase the amount of hours spent actually playing and allow myself grace with completing other projects more slowly. I sometimes struggle with feeling indebted to finish off-table projects as quickly as possible because I don't want anyone to ever feel like I've led them into an arrangement where they aren't receiving the level of value they were anticipating. I don't want to recruit players to Nachos and have them be disappointed with the actual experience.

Still, I just need to make sure I prioritize logging as many quality hours as possible. I am just winning at too great a clip to not play more more than I do.

Food for thought.

GLGL with your grind, fellas
WAGMI

pretty much exact same stats the bots on micro-low-mid stakes had 6-8 years ago

partypoker, italian sites, pokerstars, ALL of the sites.

Back then people said those are "real player stats". Drove me insane, it was so obvious to me

2/2: +$400, +157bb

Tracker:

February:

Today:

Session Debrief:
The "bad bots" made a 2-3 hour appearance at 500-1k tonight! Too bad it was short lived. They were gone by the last hour of my session. If they are going to be around regularly, 10+ EV bb/100 WRs are going to be possible even at 1k/2k... buuuuuuuuut the won't stick around. They've been doing this since summer: showing up for a day (or a week), getting hammered for -5+ EV bb/100 and then retreating back to mid-stakes. Recently, they've even gone from 200nl. While their resurgence here was a welcome reprieve, I'm not counting on this being any kind of trend.

If I can take ~1bb/100 off the "good bots", which I believe is easily doable because of their sizing tells and a handful of remaining spots where legitimate hard exploits are available, all I have to do is perform well against Fish and I am guaranteed a very, very solid WR at 1k (and even 2k) because there are two good bots per table at HS, anyway.

Nachos is about to make one last major improvement to our bot identification algorithm while simultaneously incorporating ~1+million new hands into our team DB. I think once that happens, most of the off-table bot foundational work will be done. From there, it will just be a matter of checking recent data trends from time to time to see what strategy elements have changed, but there will be no more hours upon hours spent thinking about how to improve the algorithms, debugging them, etc. Additional work will mostly be maintenance and staying on top of emerging profiles.

Once that work enters a maintenance phase, my focus for 2026 will become establishing a healthy WR at 2k. I may need to undergo some extensive coaching/skill work to get to that point, but whatever it takes is whatever it takes. The larger thing I'm getting at is that, at some point, my edge is going to be sufficient to just start banging out as many profitable hours as possible.

Personally, I don't have any aspirations to be one of the best players in the world. I want to make a few million dollars and retire very, very early. If I can use this situation with the bots to be able to play 2k profitably in high volumes, I can achieve this relatively quickly by using the profits to continue to invest in real estate. My wife and I already own one vacation rental in southern California. If I can start banging out 250-300k years, between her income (which is also six figures) and mine, we'll be able to acquire and fully pay off 3-4 properties in the next handful of years.

Long story short: I see the light at the end of the tunnel. My exit strategy is firmly in place and there's a clear, achievable path to get there in a reasonable time frame.

Now, we just do the do until it is done.

GLGL with your grind fellas!
WAGMI

How is the ROI on vacation rentals? I'm guessing with mortgage and property taxes, it may be more profitable to just invest the money in a passive retirement fund or Vanguard Total Market (VT) if you want to be aggressive.

For the average investor, I think the cons are going to outweigh the pros compared to going with some sort of index fund. ROIs are generally going to be very similar, but there is more work and maintenance involved with a rental property even if you hire a property manager. However, high performing properties can surpass 15%+ ROI and there are substantial opportunities for adding value in the real estate space. My father-in-law has been a contractor for more than thirty years and has built multiple houses from the ground up. After purchasing our first property, with his help, we converted a den to a bedroom and added a pool. With a bit of help from the market, the property value appreciated 25% in the first two years alone. If you live close by and manage the property yourself, this can also massively increase ROI.

Like all things investing, it really depends.

# 2/3: +$6342, +740bb

Tracker:

February:

Today:

Session Debrief:
The bad bots were back at 500r/1000r tonight! Even though my EV line doesn't really show it, when the conditions are like this, 10+ EV bb/100 WRs are possible at high stakes. I really have to consider shooting 2k if they're back again tomorrow night. The spot is just too nice.

Absolutely crushed the bad bots throughout the night. Wasn't really making strong value, but, luckily (?), I got all-in preflop against AA 3 times (including one multiway) and won two of them. I also jammed 2P into better 2P against a bad bot... and spiked the river for 150bb, lol.

Given enough hands, it is impossible not to have an outstanding WR in pools where the bad bots are present when you have full access to all of Nacho's tools. It is truly the best value proposition in all of online poker right now.

Oh, yeah, one more thing:

This was my biggest winning day... ever.

��

GLGL with your games fellas!
WAGMI

**# 2/4: +~$2000**

Tracker was glitching and missed loads of hands. That is why there will be no graphs. At one point, I was down about ~5k today. Just kept running into it at 1k. Or had draws I couldn't fold because I had the odds, but I was still going to lose 60-65% of the time. You know how it is.

I kept playing, won all 5 buy-ins back at 1k and finished up 4 buy-ins at 500nl.

Tbh, it wasn't really smart game selection. I sat HU with good bots and held 4 tables during the dead hours. So I got access to every single fish that joined the pool after ~4am or so (because there generally wasn't four full tables going for most of it).

If we had proper data on the good bots, we'd absolutely wreck them HU. Their strategy seems far more exploitative HU than it is at 6max (where they're largely balanced and fairly tough to deal with).

Whatever. I'll take it. I'd like to see a little more discipline with just turning my PC off when the games suck. I could've done that about ~1hr into this session with no regrets. Instead, I got angry and decided to chase. The drive to compete served me well in sports, but it is very often problematic in poker. I really hate losing... but a session where we lose money isn't the same thing as losing a game or a match or what have you. That's the wrong frame. I know the right frames -- I just revert to old paradigms in the heat of the moment.

There's always something to work on.

GLGL with your grind!
WAGMI

2/7: Update

Tracker:

February:

Today:

Debrief:
Probably the worst 20k hands of poker I've played since rededicating myself to the game in June. The changes to the timebank have meaningfully impacted my ability to play properly as my hands/hr have gone up 50%. I trust that I will get used to it and it will ultimately be a benefit. 500h/hr is what I used to play on ACR (even touching 600). However, this pool is not well-suited to fast play, autopiloting as we have so many different profiles to be aware of from multiple types of bots, RTA players, fish, and the occasional, actual human reg (yeah, all 4 of them, lol).

I have not actually been able to produce WR (1bb/100) in 6max over a 20k hand sample which was pretty unthinkable for me before last week.

Heads-Up:
I have also been trying to battle the bots HU, which I guess is going well enough:

I have been playing a very bizarre (for me) style because bots literally can't adjust to what I am doing. My strategy is so comically imbalanced that you would seriously question my intelligence if you saw the CVs, lol. Whatever. It's working and we're only going to improve as we start building out anti-bot HU resources (we haven't focused much on this yet).

I hate it. I can't tell you how much I hate it, lol. It is working in a limited sample, though.

I'll take it because it gives me first access to new Fish who join the pool and is massively increasing my hands/hr (which has also been a problem as mentioned above). There have been many occasions where I get a whale to myself for 5-50 hands. That's massive, massive EV.

Moving Forward:

I need to get used to all these new conditions (lots of HU, pace of play, etc). Adding to all of this is the fact I am shot-taking 1k and learning HU play on the fly at HS. It's probably not the greatest recipe for elite WR.

I trust myself to bring it together and make it work. I trust myself to get back into that super healthy 5-10 EV bb/100 zone, but it is really, really ugly right now.

Feels like I am running particularly bad the past few days, but what can you do? EV line says otherwise. Just says I suck and I need to get better. Which is true enough. That's always true enough.

Anyway...

/deardiary

GLGL with your grind!
WAGMI

2/10 Update

Tracker:

February:

1k Shot Results:

Heads-Up vs Good Bots -- FAILURE:

Debrief:
We are 10 days into February and I've logged 75+ hours and 30k+ hands. Not bad.

Lot of junk volume, though. I am just now getting used to all the new changes on Ignition and I feel like I've hit my rhythm. For the rest of the month, I'm just going to be max bum hunting 1k. So far, the results of this shot have been disappointing (outside of running insanely hot in 6max), but I really think the shot clock changes hurt me quite badly in the beginning part of the month. I am still confident I can start winning ~5 EV bb/100 at 1k going forward. I feel like I've completely adjusted to the faster pace. If not, I can always go back to the stress free grind of 10-15 bb/100 at NL200. I do think, realistically, I need to win at least 3-4bb/100 to make 1k worth it. Otherwise, the lower variance, lower stress, and similar hourly of 200 is preferred.

We'll see what I can do with MAX BUM HUNTING engaged. It shouldn't be all that much worse than what I've done at 500. The players are better at 1k, but not 5+bb/100 off my WR better. Just a little better. And rake is lower. It really, really shouldn't be much different.

I need to perform. That's all. And I will.

LFG.

GLGL with your grind,
WAGMI

Gogogo, love the attitude

2/12: 35 Years Old Today!

Tracker:

1k Shot So Far:

Debrief:
The bad bots are back at high stakes so I feel like I cannot ever leave my computer. I am playing 12+ hours a day at the moment. Feels like hourly has to be $200-300 with these conditions.

Still, I went to the Celtics game for my birthday with my wife. Balance or something, amirite? I am 35 years old today.

Going to try and force some sleep so I can get back to the games as soon as possible.

Just going to have a quick dream about what it would be like if I didn't blow damn near 10k battling the good bots HU this month, trollolol.

GLGL with your grind!
WAGMI

2/14: +$7505, +664bb

Biggest Winning Session EVER!!!

Good stuff! 😃

GLGL with your grind boys!
WAGMI

MOVE UP!

Alright, I've seen enough. MM was right. Time to shoot 2k. Next weekend, I am replacing all 500r tables with 2000r tables.

6max Results in February:

I think the timing here is perfect. Bodog is being shuttered in favor of Ignition. If the rules work the way we anticipate, that means all the LATM and Canadian players previously restricted to 1k will now have access to 2k. I think, in practice, this should mean that there is very little difference between 1k and 2k going forward. It will mostly be the same people. And I think I am beating 1k very, very soundly when I focus on table selection.

Time to sack up and shoot.