Limit Texas Hold'em and No-Limit Texas Hold'em, are two entirely different game. They happen to share a few things in common but from a game theory they're two wholly different beast.
They're as different that, basically, limit Texas Hold'em is a solved problem: good bots can rival with the best professional players (playing Limit Hold'em for money online is risky: you can be playing vs a bot or vs someone entering the moves of a bot).
But No-Limit Texas Hold'em? There are players who've won several major tournaments. The psychological element is very, very important.
And unless we make amazing AI discoveries, it's going to be very difficult to write bots able to beat good players at No-Limit Texas Hold'em.
But you can find bots online, even for NLHE, able to beat beginners and the rake at very low limits (called the nanostakes and the micro-stakes, but not above).
Another thing: there's so much money to be made (as in millions of $) by writing a bot able to beat mid-stakes and high-stakes online no-limit Texas Hold'em that the last thing someone who'd write such would do would be to publish it online.
Major sites like PokerStars do pro-actively look out for bots: the EULA states that they have the right to scan the entire memory of your computer and your entire hard disk. And you can't install such a software without giving the root/admin password of your system. And you cannot legally use a VPN: if they detect one you're out (you still technically can if you manage to fly 100% below the radar). And you can't use remote desktops. It's overall very restrictive.
They're regularly busting bot-rings and chinese-colluders rings and confiscating their money (and redistributing it to other players).
And if they suspect an account of multi-accounting, they'll do tricky things like moving and resizing all the poker tables at once, while simultaneously showing a captcha.
If you fail to enter it, you'll have a hard time convincing the site to not confiscate your money...
But back in the wild wild west days, it was amazing: some people had "war rooms" made of tens of PCs, all playing online poker and making very very big money. It was a big business.
But games got tougher, poker "black friday" hit the US hard, bot detection has vastly improved, etc.
As someone who worked for one of the online poker sites doing bot detection and collusion investigation, I find your optimism amusing. It is certainly not over.
Limit Texas Hold'em and No-Limit Texas Hold'em, are two entirely different game. They happen to share a few things in common but from a game theory they're two wholly different beast.
They're as different that, basically, limit Texas Hold'em is a solved problem: good bots can rival with the best professional players (playing Limit Hold'em for money online is risky: you can be playing vs a bot or vs someone entering the moves of a bot).
But No-Limit Texas Hold'em? There are players who've won several major tournaments. The psychological element is very, very important.
And unless we make amazing AI discoveries, it's going to be very difficult to write bots able to beat good players at No-Limit Texas Hold'em.
But you can find bots online, even for NLHE, able to beat beginners and the rake at very low limits (called the nanostakes and the micro-stakes, but not above).
Another thing: there's so much money to be made (as in millions of $) by writing a bot able to beat mid-stakes and high-stakes online no-limit Texas Hold'em that the last thing someone who'd write such would do would be to publish it online.
Major sites like PokerStars do pro-actively look out for bots: the EULA states that they have the right to scan the entire memory of your computer and your entire hard disk. And you can't install such a software without giving the root/admin password of your system. And you cannot legally use a VPN: if they detect one you're out (you still technically can if you manage to fly 100% below the radar). And you can't use remote desktops. It's overall very restrictive.
They're regularly busting bot-rings and chinese-colluders rings and confiscating their money (and redistributing it to other players).
And if they suspect an account of multi-accounting, they'll do tricky things like moving and resizing all the poker tables at once, while simultaneously showing a captcha.
If you fail to enter it, you'll have a hard time convincing the site to not confiscate your money...
But back in the wild wild west days, it was amazing: some people had "war rooms" made of tens of PCs, all playing online poker and making very very big money. It was a big business.
But games got tougher, poker "black friday" hit the US hard, bot detection has vastly improved, etc.
So the "gold rush" is over for most botters.