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Aleksei_Riikonen comments on Verifying Rationality via RationalPoker.com - Less Wrong
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The difference between game theory and decision theory is that in game theory you need to worry about not just what is rational for you to do, you also have to consider what is rational for the other players to do.
When you play online poker, you are placing complete trust in your analysis of the trustworthiness of the 'house'. The house could cheat you, if it desires, and probably not get caught. But you analyze that cheating would be an irrational thing for the house to do an a large scale - because large scale cheating would get caught and they would lose customers.
So, what is your analysis of what they would do to a small number of their customers who violate their rules by using real-time machine assistance? They can't take those people to court. People who, if they were allowed to get away with it, would destroy the online poker business. Would it be rational for the Poker houses to try to cheat the rule-breakers?
Would they actually do that?
I used to count cards at blackjack. And when I did it in Reno, at a certain stage a new dealer would be brought to the table (outside the normal shift schedule). And from that point on, I would lose money. If I watched closely, I could see them dealing seconds.
That's not a violation of the rules. Assistant programs such as discussed above are used by essentially all serious players and that's fine by the sites.
Actually, online poker business is growing every year.
Use of real-time machine assistance to guide your play is not against the rules? Then apparently, I don't understand the rules. What kinds of computer assistance do they forbid?
(EDIT: I am mistaken in what I state in this comment. See comments below for correction.)
Essentially the deciding factor whether an assistant program is allowed is whether the program does the mouse-clicking for you.
Quoting from the Terms of Service of the biggest poker site:
5.6. AUTOMATIC PLAYERS (BOTS). The use of artificial intelligence including, without limitation, "robots" is strictly forbidden in connection with the Service. All actions taken in relation to the Service by a User must be executed personally by players through the user interface accessible by use of the Software.
That was a pretty remarkable example of selective quotation.
Immediately above the paragraph you quoted was a link to this FAQ. Note the long list of software products which they say you are forbidden to use.
The first long list is about programs that are allowed, btw.
But I guess I should have been been more specific that I was talking in the context of "bot-like" programs, and what I said is completely accurate in such a context.
Of course additionally e.g. programs that show your cards to your friends are forbidden. And utilizing large centralized databases is forbidden. But programs that do such things are not "bot-like".
EDIT: Ok, actually I am wrong. They go further in banning "bot-like" programs than I described here. I knew that the multi-purpose "poker analytics suites" that people like me widely use are allowed, and that real bots are forbidden, but I was mistaken where exactly they draw the line between these types of programs, since I hadn't really looked into such.