Poker Program Battles Humans In Vegas

Bridger writes "Poker software called Polaris will play a rematch against human players during the 2008 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Developed by an artificial intelligence group at the University of Alberta in Canada, Polaris will be pitted against several professionals at the Rio Hotel between July 3rd and 6th. 'It's possible, given enough computing power, for computers to play "perfectly," where over a long enough match, the program cannot lose money,"' said associate professor Michael Bowling.'"

Link to the competition page

[tansey]

http://poker.cs.ualberta.ca/man-machine/ [ualberta.ca]

First match was a draw.

Re:Can't lose money?

[InlawBiker]

The online poker houses don't ever "win" because they're not in the game. They're just the host, and they make money by taking percentage of the pot for each game.

It's for this reason they have an interest in making sure the games are fair. If there was ever reason to suspect the games were weighted or unfair everybody would leave to another host.

They are way too busy (literally) raking in the dough to cheat. The big online poker sites go through a lot of trouble to keep their reputation clean.

Re:Reminds me of those...

[ragethehotey]

You are fundamentally mis-understanding the importance of variance. Try to think of it in the REALLY big picture of the long term. If I offer you a game you spin a wheel where the bet is $1000, and 999 out of 1000 times you will lose everything, and 1 time out of 1000 you will get paid $100,001 dollars, my game is now paying out OVER 100%. Now this is a simplified example, but almost NOBODY is willing to take those swings of variance for such a ridiculously small edge. The casino has almost unlimited amounts of money, and can ALWAYS bear the swings. This is also besides the point that there are MAYBE only a handful of them on the casino floor and they are always filled in the WAY back of the casino, ensuring that for giving up a tiny edge, hundreds of gamblers will come in and try, and give up.

Re:This is like "computer battle human in tennis"

[D.McGuiggin]

"That is, Texas Hold 'em always has 7 cards, 5 of them being community cards."

No it doesn't, variations of Texas hold em exist that use more, or less, than 7 cards.

I think what you meant to say was "I am unaware of..." instead of your declaration that was incorrect.