Poker-AI.org

or "Poker Bot as a Service"

A few weeks ago I wrote about how it would be nice to have something like an "Online Casino for Poker Bots". (see thread here viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2823 )

Back then my main motivation was to just have fun running those bots against each other, however I realize that for many members of this forum poker botting is not (just) about fun, but about making money. Now I realized that it can be both - let me explain.

Every now and then I see people
* who developed an interface (OCR, injection, etc) and are looking for a winning AI
* who are AI developers and look for people who have stealth experience or a finished interface to an online casino.

The Problem
For poker botting you need both parts, and both parts need to work extremely well. Additionally, they are entirely different beasts. Frankly, I would love to be able to focus on AI development, while someone else takes care of the interfacing part. Right now, I'm lucky enough to have a working interface to PS, but I only have time to maintain one account at the moment and that means I'm losing out on lots of possibilities (i.e. money).

How do we bring both developers together?
The Poker Bot Standard API (need a better term for this )

Since we don't want to share any code, but still want to make the most out of our program, the solution that comes to my mind is to create a kind of standard API for poker rooms and poker bots. The API would be based on the ACPC protocol, but extended to support advanced AIs (e.g. we need player names for opponent modeling) and multi tabling.

AI developers could then
* hook up their poker bots to the API
* run their bots on their own machines, keeping their code
* but the bots will then be registered on some central server, ready to receive poker decision requests.

Stealth / interface developers could then
* "rent" one of those bots that they want to try
* feeding it with poker situations and hand histories (so the bot can learn and adapt its strategy)
* earn cash since they are the online casino account holders
* pay the AI developer (lots of possibilities here, different things can be tried - for example pay by win-rate and / or number of requests)

This would create a marketplace for AI. Of course it would also work for other games, not just poker. But poker could be a starting point.

If you're interested in participating in a prototype for this, please do tell me for which kind of poker games (NL/HE, FL/HE, PL/O) you have a bot or casino interface that you could hook up to the API.

Looking forward to your comments

- This was proposed back in about 2008, but I don't think folk could agree on a standard.
- 0swald offered an api to his AI.
- It's what I plan on doing too, if I ever get time
- If a standard comes about it will be de-facto
- If you have a good AI botters will adapt to its api.
- Getting consensus is a pain in the arse.

Is Osvald still around?

I was thinking along similar lines to solve this "chicken and egg" problem that all marketplaces have, but I see two ways to "seed" it:

* Offer my own bot as a service, generating revenue for others, and multiplying my own.
* Offer my casino interface for others, choosing the best bot (maximizing my profit) and paying for it.



Are you running a profitable bot right now? What needs to happen for you to be interested in "outsourcing" interface development?

- I need to get other stuff out of the way of my life to give me time
- I need to write a better AI - I'm not interested in trying to rent a marginally profitable low stakes AI