Computer Beats Poker Experts

McClatchy:

Human pride took a hit 11 years ago when IBM's Big Blue computer beat world chess champion Gary Kasparov. Now it's poker players' turn to be humiliated by a machine.

A computer system called Polaris outperformed some of the world's top players last weekend at a human-vs.-machine competition in Las Vegas.

The score was computer 3, humans 2, with one draw.

Read the whole story: McClatchy

Comments

[TheCaulk]

correction
Limit Poker -bet fixed amount, fold, or RAISE FIXED AMOUNT... sorry about that.

[TheCaulk]

I agree with waden. The betting/bluffing aspect of poker makes it much more complex to program. These test were done playing LIMIT hold em (you can only bet a fixed amount, fold, or call), so it fairly different than the NO-LIMIT you see on TV. Also the sample size is way to small in these test, Winning players win over 30k+ hands not 500.

[RedDogBear]

Well I'm totally biased since I was in the Chess club and never got into poker much but Chess is a more sophisticated and complex game than poker so this doesn't surprise me. Plus, you can't have much more of a poker face than a computer. What would be really cool (geeking out here) would be if someone added some face recognition software and a camera the computer could focus on any player. "I'm sorry Dave, I'm going to have to call your bluff"

[wadenelson1]

>Chess is a more sophisticated and complex game than poker

No it's not. And I play both at a reasonable level.

Poker is MUCH harder for computers to master. Incomplete information, unlike chess, where you can see the board and calculate every possible future move. And you typically face 5-9 opponents instead of just one.

Why do you think computers mastered chess so much earlier than poker.

Billions are spent on online betting, online poker. The guy who builds a winning poker robot can make billions fleecing poor players who don't even realize they're up against a robot. That financial motivation isn't there for writing a winning chess program.

[HEYWOODRFLOYD]

This was actually round two of this face off. In 2007 two of the world's top players (Phil Laak and Ali Eslami) defeated Polaris, but it was certainly close. Both players claimed they were completely exhausted after the three day affair.

[KindAndThoughtful]

It was really just a matter of time. Reminds me of the movie Terminator.

[Transrational]

Of course they win.
No emotion, no tell.
No hunches or intuition involved.
Computers just don't believe in "luck".

[axt113]

then we must become cyborgs, nucleic nanonites FTW!