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(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Tue, Aug 30th 2005 2:23am





Forget Tweaking Your Poker Bot... How About Tweaking The Virtual Dealer?

from the whoops dept

A nice followup to the story yesterday talking about the popularity of tweakable poker bots, comes an interesting story from Boing Boing that reminds us that programs are written by humans, and sometimes exhibit unexpected characteristics. In this case, someone noticed that the virtual "dealer" in an online blackjack game took longer in certain situations, allowing the player to gain an edge and the ability to "beat the house" consistently. While some debate whether or not this is "cheating," it really doesn't seem all that different from recognizing the patterns of a human player or dealer in the same situation.

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  1.  
    identicon
    Pete Austin, Aug 30th, 2005 @ 3:36am

    Card Game tactics

    I've been watching a lot of online poker recently and have noticed that novices very often reveal that they're making a difficult decision by slowing down. Good players obscure this tell by sometimes slowing at other times, e.g. before folding a poor hand. I don't see anything wrong with watching for similar behaviour from an automatic dealer.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
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    babyhuey, Aug 30th, 2005 @ 2:58pm

    2600

    If anyone read the latest 2600 quarterly, this was in it. way before the boing-boing article was written

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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