Ignore the Succint/Verbose setting on the menu. All this does is change the amount of data recorded in the session log.

5.3 Rakeback

Rakeback is necessary to show a worthwhile long-term profit for most cash games. Please register for your poker accounts through a reputable rakeback provider. If you don't have a bonus or rakeback going for you, you should only play SNG's or Tournaments.

You can get rakeback through our favorite provider by following this link: http://tinyurl.com/b3jrz4

Get a Neteller Account

: If you are not a USA citizen, it is highly recommended that you have a Neteller account to use for moving funds in and out of your poker room accounts. You can register for one using the following link and will receive occasional special offers for doing so: http://tinyurl.com/7cjjv5h

Poker Bot Strategy

A guide for optimizing the profitability of your bankroll

Copyright 2008

www.BonusBots.com

– please redistribute freely

Introduction

July 2010 Note: This strategy guide is now a couple of years old and may be starting to get a little outdated. However it is still a good idea to give it a read.

Hopefully, the reason you have this guide is because you downloaded one of our poker bots. If not, please go do so at www.BonusBots.com

. The download is free and will work for 200 hands before requiring a license purchase.

The purpose of this strategy section is to help you use our product profitably, in a manner that both suits you and makes the endeavor worth your while. We believe we are selling the best pokerbots on the internet, but if you don’t use them correctly they might not do you any good (other than having a really cool toy).

We have been selling an Omaha/8 bot since late 2006 when we started selling online gaming bots. In early 2007 it became clear that the real demand was for a

H old’em bot, as that’s where all the action is in online poker. So we started building one. This project proved to be much bigger than we ever could have anticipated.

One year later, we finally released it. And it’s not like we dilly-dallied on this thing either. It took a year of constant development, testing, and revising before we had some thing we thought was good enough to sell. Our Hold’em bot is the cumulative result of an incredible effort lik e you can’t even imagine. That was in the spring of 2008.

Fast-forward another year to spring of 2009. The original released product, while very good, has been constantly improved. To the point even of a special programming language being added to it which allows the user to control 100% of it’s actions if they so desire. Custom profiles are being cranked out by our users and posted in our support forum on a daily basis.

This bot takes previous round betting action into some of it’s playing decisions. It knows how many players are still in the hand, and what it’s current position is. It makes wise continuation bets and check-raises in good spots.

It also randomizes many of it’s decisions by using card colors. For example, the bot may raise or fold in some places depending on whether it’s first hole card is black or red. You simply won’t find these kinds of features programmed into other commercially-available poker bots. (O f course they didn’t take a year to create, either.)

As the product improves, the license fee rises. Consequently we see it as a very good investment, whenever you happen to purchase it.

Types of Poker Bots

There are three basic types of poker bots on the market.

Win Hold’em (or Open Hold’em)

These are products that click the correct buttons but do n’t know what to do. It’s for programmers, to give them a jump start and allow them to program the playing instructions. You need to know programming code to complete the product, C/C++ I believe. Poker rooms know about these and are actively scraping for them, so you need to combine the use of two PC

’s in order to run them (one holds the Win Hold

’em program, the other holds the poker room software). It’s rather complicated and involves a lot of effort to pursue.

Please note that our poker bots can now also be custom coded by the user, for those so inclined. So we are essentially offering the same thing now, except that our products come with winning programming already installed (in addition to a large option menu which lets you quickly adjust the play for many situations).

Profiles are easily saved and little bits of custom code can be added to change the behavior here and there if you wish.

So a complete user-designed profile for our poker bots can now be created by anyone who has a mind to in a matter of hours, as opposed to a matter of months like it takes with Win Holdem or Open Holdem. Our language is very easy to learn even for people with no programming background. This is not necessary but is a nice extra feature. More about this below.

Third Party Brains

This category includes the OPI bots (OPI stands for Online Poker Inspector; or more specifically

Online Hold’em inspector). The bot software uses a third party brain to make decisions, usually some type of poker odds software that gives playing advice based on the situation. The problem with these is that there are not enough variables in the poker advice programs to make a good bot.

Low limit games at certain poker rooms are full of these OPI bots. Our Hold’em bot will destroy them over time.

Self-contained Bots

T hat’s what our bots are. I have purchased a couple others that fit this category over the years, but they always turned out to be junk. I am unaware of any other product currently being sold in this category. They are, after all, quite difficult to create.

To run our bot you just open the program, choose your playing options, open the poker room, get in a game, click start and minimize the bot program. (Our bots are disguised as common computer applications and thus any poker room scraping for them will only see that you have Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox,

Microsoft Outlook, the Microsoft generic program icon, a DOS window, or something like that open on your computer while you are playing.)

Staying in Stealth Mode

Because it’s entirely possible that the poker rooms might start looking for our bot, it’s wise to always have it hidden while playing. It also might be prudent to have the poker room software open and maybe even the table you want to play at open for a couple minutes before joining.

Better yet, get into a game and play for a few minutes before opening the bot software and then quickly start and hide it. Have any settings from the option menu that you are using selected ahead of time.

We really don’t anticipate any problems in this area but it’s wise to be careful.

When the program is in Hide mode it doesn’t show as an application running and is not visible anywhere on your computer screen. Use the Alt+F10 command to bring it back (or whichever F-key command the bot tells you to use before it hides). The software also incorporates several other stealth features to avoid being profiled as a bot, including:

• Random Pixel Clicking

• Random Delay Time Before Acting

• Using Preflop Fold in Turn Buttons sometimes (only at certain poker rooms)

• Very, very occasionally typing “nh” in the chat window when it loses on the river

• Scheduled Bathroom Breaks

Because of these features, it is extremely difficult to detect.

Sit-out Options

On the option menu of our pokerbot programs you can choose to have them sit out when the players at your table fall beneath a certain number. When the player count goes back to your selected number the bot will attempt to sit itself back in. This usually works, but not always. And it is very possible to get removed from the table by the poker room while sitting out.

For these reasons, plus the fact that our bots have been programmed to play well shorthanded, we don’t recommend using this option for anything other than high-stakes cash games. Please make sure the sitout option is set to <1 before using it the first time.

The sit-out option is automatically ignored in tournaments of all types.

Max Session Time

On the option menu of our pokerbots you can choose to have them quit after a certain number of hands or after a certain time has elapsed. This comes in handy when you are leaving for work or going to bed and want to control the playing session time, which is always a good idea (to keep from being profiled as a possible bot user).

Playing Sessions

Now, you could let the bot run for days or even weeks on end. But that would be foolish wouldn’t it? Not only would you possibly flag your account and cause troubles for yourself, but it could even result in causing problems for the rest of us. Please bot responsibly. Playing 10-12 hour days with 8-12 hour breaks in between is reasonable. Take a day off now and then as well.

There are several ways to set the max session, including by when your stack size reaches a certain level so you can book a win and walk away. See the instructions text file for more detailed information.

Bathroom Breaks

The Hold’em Bot comes with a bathroom break scheduler and it is recommended to use this feature in cash games. The bot will sit out for two or three minutes then sit back in. This can be scheduled as often as you like. However we recommend three minutes every 90 to 120 minutes. Be sure to turn it off in

tournaments (this is done by making the interval time higher than your max session time).

Avoiding Being Profiled

Because our bots are programmed to take different actions in the some of the same scenarios based on random elements, and because there are quite a few user option settings which can be changed for No Limit play, they are difficult to profile. They also play well shorthanded so it’s hard to get pegged as a bot and be exploited for it. Still, it’s a good idea to play without the bot once in a while just to keep players who are taking notes on you off kilter. (At the lower limits this isn’t something you should even be concerned about.)

Poker Room Upgrades

From time to time a supported poker room will upgrade their software in a manner that temporarily breaks the bot. This is no time to panic! Rest assured that we probably already know about it and are working on the fix. Watch our forum announcements and/or subscribe to our RSS feed for the announcement of when you can download the upgrade.

Our Forum URL: www.bonusbots.com/forum

Our RSS Feed for Updates: www.bonusbots.com/updates/feed

The Rake: Your Worst Enemy

Most poker players completely underestimate their most formidable opponent, the rake. The rake always ends up with the most money over any reasonable time period. It’s like an opponent who is guaranteed to book a big win every single time you sit down at a poker table. And that makes things very tough!

Consider this: A game where the average stack is $150 and the average rake is just $.60 per hand, dealing 65 hands per hour. This is typical of many online games. In 23 hours the rake will have taken every single chip on the table.

That’s right, all of it. You can’t imagine how profitable the larger online poker rooms are. And you had better understand that this is a near-impossible proposition to escape from, unless:

A) your opponents are playing terribly, and/or

B) you are getting a significant portion of that rake back through bonuses and/or rakeback.

Full 9 and 10-handed games are one way to help c urb the sting of the rake. It’s cost is significantly less at these tables, as more players share in the bill and the blind pressure is less. This means that you can play tighter and be rewarded for it. (That’s why our Hold’em bot plays extremely tight in full ring games.) The drawback is, only good players seem to understand this and so the full 9/10 tables just don’t have a lot of bad players in them any more. That’s a real problem.

Another way to escape the rake is to play tournaments, especially multi-table tournaments (MTT’s). There is so much dead money in these things that you don’t need rakeback or bonuses to profit from them nicely. Dead money is a term that refers to people who have no chance of finishing high, and MTT’s always have enough of them to more than cover your entry fees.

Even SitNGos (SNG’s) can be a profitable way to avoid the rake at the lower buyins. For example, $5 and $10 SNG’s have enough dead money – people just messing around who aren’t really serious – to be quite profitable without needing any bonuses or rakeback. As you move up to the medium and higher buy-in games the dead money vanishes, however. But in those games all you have to do is play solid and keep your cool in order to have an edge which negates the entry fee, something that bots happen to excel at.

All in all tournaments are an excellent way to escape the rake.

Finally, for those with the means and the stomach, high-stakes cash games can be the route out of the rake’s devastating grasp. Once the average pot size is significantly above the size where the max rake per pot is reached, it becomes much less of a factor. In these games the players are all pretty good and so small edges are obtained by those who don’t go on tilt or make stupid mistakes. Again, this is something that our bot is a champion at.

However, high stakes games have other pitfalls, not the least of which is having a tendency to become shorthanded where it’s just you and a couple of the best players in the world. Obviously you want to avoid that and so the sit-out option on our bot should be used at these tables if you want to take a crack at them (we’d

also recommend sticking to limit). The other problem is that high stakes games can become high-profile, something botters should try to avoid. But our bot actually should do OK at high-stakes limit tables that stay full

– just don’t play too long.

Level of Competition

This is the final ingredient. Terrible players will pay your share of the rake as well as theirs, and leave you a little something to boot. If there are a couple of them in your game, rest assured that everybody will get paid. They are the life blood of good online poker players, and even the best poker bot needs them in order to be profitable. This is a critical concept.

In fact if there are not bad players frequently coming into your games, you are not going to make a profit - with or without a great pokerbot. Even the poker rooms with the best rakeback programs and bonuses are not giving it all back.

There will be a small deficit to make up, and the bot will need poor players making frequent poor decisions in order to grind out an hourly profit. This is why a table full of poker bots is simply not going to work, no matter what the rakeback and/or bonus scheme is.

Without bad players

, the best you’ll be able to do is lose less than everybody else. This is very important to und erstand. Seek out soft games. It’s worth your time. There are tools available to help you do this. Just having Poker Tracker can be a tremendous resource. You can check in on your bot every now and then, scan the tables for players with bad stats, change tables, turn your screen off, and come back in an hour or so to repeat the process. This exercise, if you have the ability to pull it off, will improve your results in cash games dramatically.

Bad stats are players with high $VPIP and low PFR%. In other words, they play a lot of pots but don’t raise before the flop much. These are the kind of players that will make the bot profitable, and it greatly behooves you to find them and sit at their table. (The other stat you might check for is a low won at showdown percentage, or perhaps just a high dollar loss for the number of hands you have recorded on them.)

Multi-Tabling

Both our poker bots can currently play up to six tables at any of our supported poker rooms (except Bodog where they allow a maximum of 4 tables per player).

This function works best on large monitors where you can separate the tables farther, but even on small screens where the multiple tables obscure each other it will work as long as the buttons themselves do not overlap. The exception might be if you must Use OCR in order to play and also have a small monitor

(more on that below).

The bots can also multi-table between game types, although we do not recommend multi-tabling while playing an MTT because the additional tables open can trip up the bot when you experience a table change. Please note that you cannot multi-table across poker rooms, either

– all your tables that are open must be at the same room.

The only thing you need to watch when multi-tabling are staggering your tables.

Separate your tables as much as possible without hanging them off the edge of your monitor.

Table Positioning Tip: If you have a big screen you should try and position the tables so that there is minimum overlap between them. On smaller screens you should at least position the tables such that the button areas do not overlap.

Position the 2 nd

table window such that it is a little (about two inches) to the right of and a little (about 2 inches) below the 1 st

table and so on.

How to Multi-Table

A menu item named New Window can be found on the Holdem menu. Clicking on this causes a new bot window to be opened up. The new window will ask for the additional poker table name, which you should already be sitting at. You need to type that in exactly as it shows in the poker window, as this is case sensitive.

A max of 6 bot windows can be open simultaneously. Each bot window acts independently and can be used to connect to and play at a particular poker room as per the rules above. Profiles need to be loaded independently in each window.

They can be hidden and brought up independently. They write in separate log files. The log for the first window is called holdem.log (or om.log for the

Omaha/8bot) as usual. The log for the second is called holdem2.log and so on.

Each window is independent, so one can play Limit and another No Limit etc. without getting confused.

Most people can hide all Bot windows on their machine when multi-tabling. This is a sure way to speed up clearing bonuses and/or earning rakeback.

Custom Profile Creation

Our poker bots have an option menu where you can choose certain settings for the type of game you plan on playing in (be it a tournament, short-handed cash game, etc.). So that you don’t have to do this every time you change game types, you can save your settings as a profile. This allows you to quickly load different profiles and you can even load different profiles for different tables while multitabling. Details on how to do this are given a bit further in this manual, as well as in the instructions text file that came with our software.

The Hold’em bot now has over 30 individual settings on the option menu. If you need help with setting suggestions for different game types, we maintain a thread in our forum called

Egor’s Favorite Holdem Bot Settings and it is publicly viewable as a sticky post on the Discussion Board. Here is the link to it: http://bonusbots.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1212365053

In addition to these option menu settings, our poker bots are now completely

user-programmable as well. We created a simple language that most poker players can easily learn so you can completely program the bot’s entire playing instructions to your liking, if you so desire. The language is known as PPL which stands for Poker Programming Language.

Please note that this isn’t really necessary and many of our customers have reported great results from profiles created using the option menu. But if you are hardcore you might enjoy doing a bit of custom coding to your bot.

Also note that you don’t have to code an entire profile either. You can create small snippets of PPL code just to handle one or two situations in a certain way and use the option menu for the rest of the profile.

User-created custom code simply needs to be inserted on the saved profile

(which is a text file) underneath where you see the option menu choices displayed. Please read the

PPL User Guide

that also came with your software download to learn how to create custom code.

Stack Size Recognition

Our poker bots read their stack size from the poker table window when it is time to act. They take this information into making certain decisions based on options that you have selected. The stack size is read and recorded in dollar amounts.

However some of the settings on the option menu that include stack size ask you to set it by number of big blinds. The bot does the conversion automatically. You

probably need to do a little calculating to figure out how to set the stack size by number of big blinds for these settings.

Please note that these settings have a very high initial value, which means they are always on for any stack size if you turn the above option on. To make the above option only happen when your stack gets short you need to enter a number that represents a short stack, for example 15 or 20 (15 or 20 big blinds is a reasonably short stack in many situations).

Total Investment

The bot keeps a running tab of its total investment in any given hand. At least one option menu setting allows you to set it by Total Investment. The purpose is to keep from folding in situations when you are pot-committed.

Hold’em Bot Strategy

Get ready for some real fun. Most of our supported poker rooms offer substantial deposit bonuses which can be worked off using the bot. Some of them also offer rakeback deals through various affiliates. See the beginning of this use manual for the list of currently-supported sites, and/or log in to our support forum to get the scoop on the latest rakeback deals.

Games the Bot will Play

Our

Hold’em poker bot will play the following types of games:

 Limit cash games 6-max

 Limit cash games 9-max or 10-max

 Limit

SNG’s

 Limit

MTT’s

 NL Cap cash games 6-max

 NL Cap cash games 9-max

 NL cash games 6-max

 NL cash games 9-max or 10-max

 NL

SNG’s

 NL

MTT’s

 PL cash games 6-max

 PL cash games 9-max or 10-max



PL SNG’s



PL MTT’s

How’s that selection for you? Basically the bot will play any form of Hold’em being spread in any structure. In order to accomplish this we had to give the bot a different set of instructions for different game types, and we also decided to include some user controlled options for certain types of games. Let me try and break that down for you.

NL, PL, and NL Cap Games

– the bot plays all these types of games the same way, whether cash or tournament. The major differences between this type of game and

Limit Hold’em lies in calling raises, both preflop and post-flop, and also in calling non-raised pots preflop. In this type of game the bot folds to raises that it will call in Limit. It will also call the blind with small pocket pairs in this type of game (trying to flop a set) whereas in limit it will almost never play those hands.

In NL and PL games there are some options that need to be set. Two of these also affect Limit game play. I will give you some general guides in the strategy section below, but for now let’s go over what they are. You can find these on the

Options menu of the bot program window.

Option 1: Set the Preflop Raise Size

– You can set the preflop raise amount to always be the minimum, always be pot-sized (about 3.5 x the big blind), or sometimes bet the pot and sometimes bet the minimum based on either a random element or hand strength. In low-stakes cash games I prefer to always raise the minimum, in slightly higher stakes cash games I like to use one of the random elements, in low stakes tournaments I prefer to always use the pot-size raise, and in higher stakes tournaments I like to set it by hand strength.

Option 2: Set the Post-flop Bet Size

– You can set the post-flop bet/raise size by a % of the existing pot-size for the Flop, Turn, and River. For example you can have the bot bet 75% of the pot on the Flop, 60% of the pot on the Turn, and

50% of the pot on the River.

Option 3: Fold to Preflop Raises for AQ, AJs, KQ

– this is just what it sounds like. The default position is off, meaning that if you do not check this option the bot will call preflop raises when holding these three hands. In limit the bot always calls one preflop raise with these hands but you can make it fold these hands for a preflop raise in No Limit and Pot limit. Generally speaking I would recommend keeping the default setting in lower stakes games and checking it on for higher stakes games.

Option 4: Fold Post-Flop Below Top Pair to Any Bet or Raise

– this is a postflop setting that will give the bot an overriding instruction to always fold any hand below top-pair in strength to any bet or raise. You can leave this off and the bot will play by the default instructions and sometimes call large bets with certain drawing hands like a medium pair with a flush draw. Or you can check this option and always be safe from donking off your stack to a large all-in bet when holding anything under top pair.

Option 5: Fold to Postflop Raises with Unpaired Boards for

– this is a postflop setting that will give the bot an overriding instruction never to call a raise with a hand below the strength of your choosing. Note that this is only for non-paired boards with no possible made flush and no possible made straight. The default setting is top-pair best kicker, and that is the loosest possible setting (in limit the bot will often call raises with any top pair or combination pair/draw hands). My recommendation is to tighten this setting as you play higher stakes.

I’d lean towards checking this option in tournaments and higher stakes cash games.

Option 6: Fold to Postflop Raises with Paired Boards for

– when the board is paired what is the minimum strength hand you want to call a raise with? The default setting is trips with best possible kicker. You can loosen this or tighten this at your discretion. Again, in limit the bot will play a bit looser and I would tighten this setting in certain higher-stakes situations.

Option 7: Never Bet Turn or River with Hand Below

– (note this setting also

affects Limit games) here you can turn off the automatic continuation bluffs on the turn, which is a good idea in higher stakes cash games and late stages of tournaments, especially when you are close to the money. If you leave the default setting the bot will make pot-sized bluffs on the turn when against one opponent and the bot bet the flop and was only called and it’s first card is a certain color. Setting this option to at least second best pair is probably a good idea for tournaments and all but the smallest stakes NL games.

Option 8: Never Bet Flop With Hand Below Middle Pair When

– (note this

setting also affects Limit games) you can turn off all flop continuation bets with this setting. However it is not recommended that you use this setting unless you really know what you are doing.

Note that one of the options is to turn it off when your stacks size falls below a certain level, and that is probably the best use for it (in a tournament situation).

When your stack is getting small you don’t want to waste chips on pot-sized bets stabbing at the flop and are really just looking for hands to push with pre-flop.

This setting is for experts only. You are usually making a big mistake by not automatically betting the flop when you were the last preflop raiser.

Option 9: Never Call Paired Boards with Hand Below

– by default the bot will call one bet on certain paired boards with good two-pair hands, especially when the board pair is small and the two pair hand is of the highest other board card or better. With this setting you can tighten that up, which might be a good idea in higher-stakes cash games.

Option 10: Never Call Flush Possible Boards with Hand Below

– by default the bot will call one bet with certain hands when a flush is possible, especially when two cards are needed for a flush and the bot has a decent hand against only one or two opponents. With this setting you can tighten that up, which might be a good idea in higher-stakes cash games.

Option 11: Fold to Preflop Raise with 55 or 66 when

– set how the bot will handle these two hands preflop when there is a raise. If you leave it in the default position it will sometimes get all-in with them preflop, which is a good idea when you are short-stacked in tournaments

– but not any other time really.

Option 12: Fold to Preflop Raise with 77 or 88 when

– these hands are somewhat better than the above two, and this option will allow you to set how they handle preflop raises.

In cash games it’s probably a good idea to fold them for a raise. If you leave this setting in the default position the bot will always reraise and try to get all-in with them preflop (which is a good setting for tournaments).

Option 13: Fold to Preflop Raises with 99 or 10-10 when

– these hands are significantly better than the above two, and this option will allow you to set how they handle preflop raises. In cash games it’s probably a good idea to fold them for two raises. If you leave this setting in the default position the bot will always reraise and try to get all-in with them preflop (which is a good setting for tournaments).

Option 14: Fold to Preflop Raises with JJ or QQ when

– these hands are significantly better than the above two, and this option will allow you to set how they handle preflop raises. In higherstakes cash games it’s probably a good idea to fold them for two raises. If you leave this setting in the default position the bot will play them very intelligently, usually trying to get all in but backing off for a lot of action when out of position.

Option 15: Fold to Preflop Raises with AK when

– one of the strongest preflop holdings in a tournament, but somewhat vulnerable in a cash game. In higherstakes cash games it’s probably a good idea to fold for two raises. If you leave this setting in the default position the bot will play AK very intelligently, usually trying to get all in but backing off for a lot of action when out of position.

Option 16: Fold to Preflop Raises with AQs when

– this hand has roughly the same value as AK (offsuit), but presents more challenges in playing correctly. In general you should be less willing to get all-in with it in tournaments preflop, and be wary of too much preflop action in cash games. Some players like to tighten up with this hand. We recommend folding for two raises with it in cash games and the early stages of tournaments.

Option 17: Fold to Preflop Raises with AKs

– don’t ask me why we are even giving you this option. We just threw it in there. Some experts might want to fold for two raises in certain game environments I suppose. Recommend leaving this in the default position.

Option 18: Fold to Preflop Raises with KQs

– probably a good idea to fold for two raises in cash games but play by default when short-stacked in tournaments.

Option 19: Fold or Go All-In when Opponents (After Folds) Less than

– This feature will have the bot simply click the max button and go all-in anytime it has a playable hand. That includes a calling hand or a raising hand, the only exception being when it is in the big blind with a folding hand and gets a free look at the flop. In that case the bot will then go All-In after the flop in any situation where it would call or raise. You can set this for always, or by the number of remaining opponents. If you choose a number of remaining opponents then you would still be playing normal against a higher number of opponents. Believe it or not, using this setting in the Always position can be an effective way to play tournaments.

You can also set this option to apply only after a specified number of hands in your session has expired, which can be very effective in multi-table tournaments.

Figure on about 50-60 hands per hour being dealt when deciding when to have it kick in.

Finally, you can also set this option to trigger only when your stack size is below a certain level.

Option 20: Fold or Go All-In when Opponents at Table Less than

– This is the exact same feature as option 16 above, except that it is triggered by the starting number of opponents instead of the remaining number. In other words, the original number of opponents sitting at the table. If option 16 above is chosen, the bot may very well push all-in on the first hand of a tournament.