The following chapters will give you some introduction to anti-detection. They deal with 2-computer-stealth-setups, bring, VmWare, Ninja-folders and rootkits. These methods are overkill and unneccessary for the majority of smaller sites (just rename the executable and be good), but not enough for the very few sites that care.

As a rule of thumb, you don’t have to worry much at smaller sites. Smaller poker sites usually don’t have the knowhow and the resources to really care about bots. They are a good start for any new botter.

Apart from Stars there are three sites, that are known to care: Cake, Party and FullTilt. To our best knowledge they do care — sometimes and a little bit.

Your worst enemy are not casino security departments, but the players at your table. Every bum at NL 2 owns Poker Tracker nowadays, so if you play too long hours, win too much or run 20 accounts with identical stats you will be reported very soon. Once you get reported, sites have to care, even if they actually love bots. They will have to investigate your account and ban you. And they will be praised for their anti-bot-policy on TwoPlusTwo, even more than sites which act proactive. So use your brain and stay under the radar.

Nearly every day we have to deal with newbies, that have no clue at all, but want to bot at PokerStars. They insist stubbornly on Stars and they hassle the regulars with questions about the deepest secrets of stealth or beg for comments about the newest “kickass-stealth-setup”, they just have invented. We simply can’t tell them — except their setup will get their asses kicked; but that’s not, what they want to hear.

Believe us, it is possible to bot at Stars, and the most honourable botters play there; the great choice of soft tables and the friendly support are wonderful. But PokerStars will require some advanced methods of anti-detection, so before you try to bot there, consider the following points:

• As a rule of thumb 99% of all new botters fail horribly; they never reach the state, where they should play for real-money or worry about stealth. Why should we tell them all our secrets?

• As a newbie you don’t have a winning bot, so there is no point at all to play for real money; you should concentrate on development first, using ManualMode and PokerAcademy.

• Why Stars at all? There are so many things to care about: bot-logic, tablemaps, hoppers and stealth. Even if you have just created your first bot and are confident, that it is winning, it is adviceable to narrow down the number of issues, forget about stealth and start at smaller sites that care a bit less. Smaller sites have enough traffic and fishy games at the lower limits to give you a start. You have just rootet out one big issue and can concentrate on other problems; believe us, there will be enough of them.

• Starting at smaller sites with a more simple setup will teach you the basics, that are a prerequiste to play at tougher sites one day.

• Perfect stealth can’t be discussed in public obviously, so give us some time to get aquainted with you. Score lots of hero-points and maybe one day you will be a successful and honourable botter too. One day you will be allowed to ask The Great Max himself.