From: ted.dunning@gmail.com   
      
   Hans Aberg wrote:   
      
   > These poker programs target inexperienced players, playing automatically   
   > on the Internet, where they can be anonymous. And I gather, it is easy for   
   > a robot to make money against a player who does not play statistically   
   > correct poker.   
      
   Given a fair dealer, the easiest way to make money against other   
   players (even very good ones) is collusion.  If three of five players   
   share information and strategy, the remaining two can be put at a   
   massive disadvantage.   
      
   Of course, this is illegal in virtually all forms of poker.  That   
   doesn't mean it doesn't happen when the stakes are sufficient.  In most   
   on-line games, any sort of mechanical aid is also considered illegal   
   and many of the systems make quite an effort to examine the machine you   
   are playing on in order to determine that you don't have other programs   
   running that would help you.  This isn't that hard to circumvent, of   
   course, if you really care, but the fact remains that any robot players   
   are probably as illegal as collusion.   
      
   Most advanced players would love to have a perfect statistical robot in   
   the game since the bot could spend hours taken money from the clueless   
   players and then that money could be taken from the robot using bluffs.   
    It makes the pro's playing time much more efficient.   
      
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