The truth is now plain. There is certainly a poker bot playing in your online poker table. So you might as well be cordial to it.

Many online poker players have noticed that the games are getting harder nowadays. Perhaps this is due to all the players getting more skilled. Yeah right. The culprit is the fact that pokerbots have come to the rooms in force. The positive news of this development is that not all of these software programs are a threat. In fact a few of them are downright monkeys, which should in reality be good for your profits.

Of course there are many solid ones now playing as well, which is what accounts for the tables becoming more difficult to make money at. Mostly they are sitting at the lower stakes tables. This is because they are not as discoverable there, and as a consequence are more tolerated by the poker site there.  Having those chairs always occupied is of primary interest to the house as the rake is high and consequently a steady source of income. So they are more likely to not sweat the bots playing in those games.

At least until they start getting too many objections from the regular players, especially if these objections are coming from a known place like a big poker forum. That may get a response in the form of a PR maneuver from the poker company to show that they really care. This is usually nothing more than a written reply and perhaps they will ban the very worst offenders. Then it will be a return to business as normal. Consider this, if you owned an online poker company would you be in a rush to put a stop to a bunch of your best customers?

Not everybody who plays online poker thinks that poker robots are a negative sign for the game. Some skilled players prefer having them around. They create live tables and help assist with keeping the games going. And the reality is, all poker sites themselves have employed house bots in the startup period to get games going. Not to mention the fact that a lot of skilled players feel that they can beat the bots by learning exploitable patterns that they exhibit.

Then there are the poker botters themselves. They usually have an amazing new explanation regarding their choice to use this type of program. Most of them do not think of themselves as cheaters despite the fact that they are violating the rules of the poker site. The bot program has no practical advantage over human players, as it does not have access to any extra data than human eyes. In truth they can be difficult to setup and get running properly. But they are a heck of a lot of fun to mess around with.

So maybe we all should think about giving the bots a warm welcome. If you haven’t tried using one, perhaps you should. What could happen? These things may well be the future of online poker. So join the crowd today. Or at least, if you run into a pokerbot, take him out to dinner. Be nice. Offer to buy him a quart of oil.