Shanky Technologies is an honest business run by honest people. We sell poker bots. Poker bots are specifically mentioned as not allowed at the online poker rooms where we program them to work at. So we make a living selling a product whose intended use violates the rules for the place it is intended to be used at. There is no denying this. It is flat-out a violation of the rules you agree to play by (when you sign up for a poker room account) to use our software there.
However there is a big difference between cheating and using automation tools on your computer, the way we see it. There is a big difference between cheating and violating (what we see as) a minor point buried in the fine print of the terms of service form. Our products cannot collude. They cannot gain any information that is not available to everybody else who is playing. They are not created in a spirit of cheating, nor are they promoted as cheating tools. Cheating discussions, and discussions about committing fraud in any way, shape, or form, are not allowed in our support forum. They don’t belong there.
Online poker is much different than playing brick and mortar poker. It is played on a computer, from your home or workplace, and that introduces certain wonderful elements that make it a unique experience. There are those who would try to suppress many of those wonderful elements and attempt to force online poker to be as close to brick and mortar poker as possible.
Not us. And not a whole lot of other people either. We celebrate the uniqueness of online poker and all the additional tools and elements that become available in such a cool, modern arena: Multi-tabling capability, the ease of taking literal notes on opponents, opponent stats tracking tools, database creation and sharing, and of course automated playing tools.
As a matter of fact we see successfully using a bot as the ultimate achievement in the natural progression for a passionate student of the game. It is like doing your graduate work in the field of online poker. It is very much within the spirit of this unique game environment; in fact it nurtures and inspires that spirit. If you haven’t fooled around with a poker bot, tweaking it to play how you want for a specific game type that you have identified, you have not yet experienced all the satisfaction that mastering the incredibly fulfilling challenge of online poker offers.
We are obviously not the only people that think this. We have sold thousands Holdem Bots over the last few years, and one thing we can conclude is that people who truly love poker also love playing with this toy. Our typical customer is an honest player. They are mostly people that just love the game, people who would shudder at the idea of cheating. In fact I would describe most of our members as poker purists, intelligent players who like to solve puzzles and tinker with gadgets.
Even some poker rooms have seen it from our point of view as well. I have actual letters from Bodog on file, from their customer service department, answering emails where somebody reported a suspected bot user. They basically say, “Well so what? Using a bot isn’t cheating. If you have any evidence of collusion let us know.” This was their natural reaction to the issue, arrived at from thinking logically. (Unfortunately they have since been blackmailed by the jerks at 2+2 into changing their official policy on this, and nowadays say bots are not allowed. So now they just turn a blind eye like our other supported poker rooms do).
It is worthwhile to consider that the people who are waging the anti-bot campaign are actually just good players who don’t want a bunch of other good players saturating the games and fileting their fish before they can get to them. They are motivated by simple greed, a “more fish for me” attitude. So what is really better for the game of poker? Catering to greedy semi-pros who are only concerned about their bottom line? Or introducing a natural new element which helps further a dedicated player’s thinking and strategy development?
Any popular computer activity has always had aiding aftermarket software developed for it, since the dawn of the personal computer. It is only reasonable to expect that every possible kind of software to aide in online poker play will be developed as well, of which the poker bot is the pinnacle achievement (in our opinion). To stifle that development is not only oppressive, it goes against the very spirit of the game. Mike Caro made a poker robot twenty years ago. There have been official poker bot vs. human competitions sponsored by major gaming corporations. Major universities have engaged in poker bot projects.
Operators, please don’t let the greedy semi-pros poison your mind with their anti-bot propaganda. Poker bots are really, really cool. Real players love them, they are a natural development of the game, and they should not only be officially allowed, but openly welcomed. They are as natural part of online poker as playing in your pajamas. Soon there will probably be a major online poker room that officially welcomes poker bots, and our prediction is that when the world sees how popular they really are, others will get in line as well. But whoever makes that first bold move will no doubt reap huge rewards for it.
If you were attracted to our website because you thought we were offering a cool way to cheat, and you are a person who is not repulsed by the concept of cheating, please go away. You are not welcome in our community any more than you are in the poker games.
This was a quote I found at the shanky bot forum
hey what do you guys think