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Artificial Intelligence in Poker 279

Posted by michael from the deep-blue-calls-your-bluff dept.
Markian Hlynka writes "The University of Alberta's research into Poker AI is featured in this New York Times article. There is also detailed discussion of the game of Poker, and the 'new breed' of players who have honed their abilities online. See the U of A's poker project for more information."
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Artificial Intelligence in Poker More

Artificial Intelligence in Poker

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  • No intelligence is nessasary (Score:3, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi@yahoo. c o m> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:21AM (#6407011) Journal
    to Poker.

    She'll probably want dinner first, though.

  • Another (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:21AM (#6407013)
    New York Times article reviewed. Gotta put an end to this.

  • Strip Poker Games (Score:5, Funny)

    by beders ( 245558 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:23AM (#6407025) Homepage
    If the AI is too good, we can't get the girls naked.

    Mmm, EGA boobies...

  • Got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em (Score:5, Funny)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:23AM (#6407028)
    And when to use a Beowulf cluster to simulate every possible strategy.

  • Poker AI? riight... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KDan ( 90353 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:23AM (#6407029) Homepage
    Poker is not a card game, it's a people game (aka don't play the cards, play the people). It's all about bluffing and reading other people's bluffs. I'm baffled that people even bother playing poker on the internet. Even with webcams the game wouldn't be the same at all.

    Daniel

    • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AssFace ( 118098 ) <`stenz77' `at' `gmail.com'> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:32AM (#6407092) Homepage Journal
      reading the article is too much I see.

      it references that and points out how much of "reading the player" is overhyped and easily faked out.

      whereas the real information is in the trade at hand - the exchange of money. watching the bets and the amounts in them at varying spots in the game.

      I have a few friends that have won online tournaments and they approach it from a very mathematical point of view. They do very well in person or over the net.
      Using the "read" approach, unless the read is of the play on the table, is only going to work with people that aren't aware of the read and therefore not faking the attributes.

      I personally prefer to look for the security holes in the online software :)
      (There was a famous one in '96 or so where the system was using the random function built in - I think in Turbo Pascal IIRC - they had it exposed by posting their random code on the net to prove that they were being fair. A consulting firm then exploited that to show that they only needed to see one or two cards beyond what was in their card to then show what everyone else in the game was holding... there is much higher security in it all these days, and better/smarter programming).

      Another firend in college found a site that had a hole, not in the security, but in the method at which they gave out tokens - as long as you kept playing, there was a reward of some number of tokens as an incentive to keep you playing.
      He then ran some numbers and proved that with that, they were open to an exploit of the Martingale system. He ran it on them for a good amount of time and it failed - he basically proved that their code was cheating on the inside.
      He called them on it and after a few heated e-mails, got all his money back and was banned from the site.
      I could go on and on - but that is going off topic.
      • Yeah, cheating by the house is rife in online casinos. It's to be expected, really...the house, being a corporation, has an obligation to maximize its profits in any way possible. You'd have to be insane to play online Blackjack. Poker, though, is different. Players can collude with each other easily through the telephone or IRC. I'm sure somewhere in the wide world, there are poker boiler rooms, where lines of low-wage people sit and play for a fixed wage. I always said I was going to teach a bunch o

        • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:57AM (#6407601) Homepage

          >he house, being a corporation, has an obligation to maximize its profits in any way possible

          And when the last corporation uses the last gram of uranium to power the machine that sucks up the last drop of oil which they use to cut down the last tree on the planet to turn into paper money which they use to bribe the last honest politician, it will be a great comfort to us all that they are only doing it because capitalism obligates them to.

      • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:20AM (#6407384) Journal
        He then ran some numbers and proved that with that, they were open to an exploit of the Martingale system.

        What sort of 'exploit' of Martingale [guide2casino.com] is this? Martingale is ultimately always a losing strategy unless 1) there is no house limit and 2) you have an infinite supply of cash.

        • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Alaric42 ( 50725 )
          I would assume that the free tokens given out over time ended up being an infinite supply of money as long as you stretched out the hand length or somesuch.

      • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Ralgha ( 666887 )
        Bluffing the attributes is part of the game. The true masters of poker can read a bluff. That's where the game becomes interesting.

    • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by secret_squirrel_99 ( 530958 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:33AM (#6407099) Homepage
      Poker is not a card game, it's a people game (aka don't play the cards, play the people). It's all about bluffing and reading other people's bluffs. I'm baffled that people even bother playing poker on the internet

      Except that people play a certain way and develop easily (especially for an AI) recognizable patterns. Those patterns are just as recognizable, perhaps even more so online where the number of hands played per hour is so much greater.

      Players can get broken loosely (particularly for Texas Holdem, but also for other games) into a small group of profiles and their play patterned according to that.

      While an academic study may be new, commercial software to do this has been available for years. In particular Turbo Texas Holdem from Wilson software does an outstanding job of simulating different types of players and play conditions

      and if you really believe that people skills and not card or math skills are all that you need, I'd invite you to come to Atlantic City and sit in any of the games I regularly attend. We'd love to have you.

    • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:5, Informative)

      by rkent ( 73434 ) <[ude.dravrah.tsop] [ta] [tnekr]> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:36AM (#6407125)
      Yes and no. For limit hold 'em, there is an (approximately) "correct" way to play based on pot odds, likelihood of drawing the hand you need, etc. Early rounds of no-limit tournies approximate this, with the occasional all-in raise to shake things up, but I'd have to agree with you that in later rounds against clearly competent players, no-limit is very much a social game.

      Which leads to the larger issue: poker is a game of incomplete information; you don't KNOW what your opponent holds. You can make estimations based on past play and game conventions (eg, a bet from early position usually indicates AA, KK, or AK), but you don't know for sure, and this raises the possibility of deception.

      The problem with that is, game theory generally models strategies to combat players who are playing (rationally) to win. Not all players play like this, or at least not apparently based on the strength of cards. I think most emulators are going to get screwed on bluffs.

      But still, in lower-limit games, people are loose enough that bluffing doesn't really help (Lee Jones: "generally, you're going to have to show down with the best hand to win"), so a decent AI could at least maintain a winning margin, and so could an actual human who played tightly enough to take advantage of this. I don't know. You sure can't make zillions playing cards online, and it's definitely a while before the "deep blue" of poker.

      • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by armb ( 5151 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:11AM (#6407319) Homepage
        > But still, in lower-limit games, people are loose enough that bluffing doesn't really help

        I recently heard a serious poker player on the radio explaining why it's worth bluffing sometimes.
        If you don't bluff and lose sometimes, then when you _do_ have a good hand, you won't win much with it. You need your opponents to think "he could be just bluffing again, it's worth raising".

        He was playing in high-stakes games though.
        • That's true for higher stakes games (not that I've ever played in any) but in a low limit game ($2-4 or $3-6 hold-em for example) you're less likely to win with a bluff since many people playing these games figure, "Well, it's just $2 more to see the last card (or see what he had) so I might as well call."

          You're just much more likely to need the best hand to win in low limit games. Bluffing may sometimes work (especially against better, or at least tighter, players) and is probably useful to at least occas

          • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:3, Informative)

            by rudedog ( 7339 )
            The point is not that you can actually expect to win with a bluff, the point is that if you develop a reputation for "never bluffing", then you never get called when you have the goods. The occasional bluff will not win the pot, but if you get caught in a bluff, you will be more likely to get called when you actually have a hand.

            This advertising strategy is one of the few that work in low-limit poker as well, because people tend to remember bluffers, and they have this irrational need to "keep them honest"
    • You're partly right. Various forms of poker have varying degrees of people reading. No-limit Texas hold 'em is almost entirely a people game, but limit Omaha hold 'em (for example) can be played very profitably playing primarily your cards. In general, pot- and no-limit games are predominantly people games, but in limit games you can get away with less finesse and more strict math. It's much less important to read your opponent correctly when you have to call, say, 10% of the pot to see his cards than w

    • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drfireman ( 101623 ) <dan&kimberg,com> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:50AM (#6407206) Homepage
      You're partly right. No-limit hold'em is about things like bluffing. The kinds of poker most people play in public cardrooms (mostly limit hold'em and stud) are more about the cards, although understanding your opponents is critical to doing well at either one. Either way, online poker has a lot to offer. It's still about understanding your opponents, you just don't get as much information by way of physical behavior. There are tons of bad players online -- players who make fundamental mistakes (i.e., don't play their cards well) and who don't adjust to their opponents well (both in failing to take proper advantage and in playing easily exploited strategies). It's true that the game isn't the same at all. But many of the differences are positive, and like live poker, it's still a game of skill (a fact that's well obscured by short-term variance).

      (Blatant plug: I'm a little biased, the new edition of my book ("Serious Poker," an introduction to the serious game) has a chapter on online poker. But I do believe online poker has a lot to offer, and the sites do offer poker for play money as well.)
    • The article says differently. It says that playing the cards is a better strategy, and the fact that the last world champion was a 100% cyber-player tends to support that.

    • Poker is not a card game, it's a people game (aka don't play the cards, play the people). It's all about bluffing and reading other people's bluffs. I'm baffled that people even bother playing poker on the internet. Even with webcams the game wouldn't be the same at all.

      While it's true that poker involves reading people, it is primarily a game of calculating odds and using them to your advantage. For example: if you have a 1 in 4 chance of hitting your flush on the next card, then you should only pay t

    • As a winning poker player in casinos and online, I can tell you that poker is very much a card game, as well as a people game.

      Read Caro's Book of Tells for a good introduction to how to read people. You'll notice that some of the most powerfull tells give you information about how that player plays the game (tight, loose, passive, aggressive, etc.). A computer could get this information by keeping tabs on what its opponents do, and crunching the numbers. The only information it would lack is the tells p

    • Clearly you spend to much time watching people play in the movies, as opposed to actually playing.

      Watch the pot, know the players to know how they use the pot.

      If you bluff in poker, you loose your money. Accept perhaps small local game with you and some chumes. In that case you are probably so amaturish it doesn't really count for real games.

    • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wmajik ( 688431 )
      Not a personal attack, but I'm assuming you are not a poker player.

      At heart, poker is a human game where your ability in the mental martial arts dictate your ability to succeed. That being said however, this purity usually only shows at the highest levels of poker, heads-up (1v1) no limit poker; as showcased in the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

      In the average poker game at the local casino or with your buddies on Thursday night, the 'mental game' usually falls along the wayside along with the beer bottles.
    • You be surprised how much information you get. You really understand betting patterns if you come from an online game. Some people run databases of their opponents (you can request a history of your hands played), and can read their hand quite adeptly with the aid of these records.

    • Re:Poker AI? riight... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gehrehmee ( 16338 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @12:38PM (#6408285) Homepage

      Think that's frightening?

      Check out this article [msoworld.com] on the Second International Roshambo (Rock Paper Scissors) Programming Contest. It's actually quite interesting to understand some of the justifications and rationalles that go into attemping to win at a normally un-winnable game:

      Game theorists have analysed rock-paper-scissors and come to the conclusion that the optimal way to win a game of rock-paper-scissors is to play completely randomly; random play will win as many throws as it loses and hence draw every match. However, consider trying to win a tournament by drawing every match!

      Therefore, when trying to win a rock-paper-scissors tournament, you should assume that players will be trying to win the whole event and hence will not be playing optimally. Therefore you shouldn't play optimally - instead, you should figure out how to play in order to beat your opponent.

      • Oh, and before I forget, the Roshambo Programming Contest [ualberta.ca] is hosted by the University of Alberta, the same university responsible for the above poker AI article.

        They've also created the world's best checkers player [ualberta.ca], human or machine. Chinook utilized a distributed computing solution for mapping and optimizing its checkers stratagy back in 1989. IIRC from the talk Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer gave on it, this distributed network accounted for 80-90% of the Internet traffic between the United States and Canada in

  • Gem (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) * on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:25AM (#6407034) Journal
    I was following various links about the topic (artificial intelligence and poker) when I found this little gem. Wicked awesome site design, so I can only assume that his software building skills are as magnificent: POKER WITH AI-LEARNING [webepcc.unex.es]

    I say we help him beta test not only his program, but also help him stress-test his web server.

    • I was following various links about the topic (artificial intelligence and poker) when I found this little gem. Wicked awesome site design, so I can only assume that his software building skills are as magnificent: POKER WITH AI-LEARNING

      I say we help him beta test not only his program, but also help him stress-test his web server.

      He's might be on the level, but I am a bit too paranoid to go to some fly-by-night brazilian website and download binary-only software to my machine that the author outright tel
      • Sorry, I said Brazilian, but I just realized it's actually Spanish. That damned green colour scheme threw me off and I didn't actually look closely at the URL until just now :-)
    • 1. Decide on project
      2. Design kick ass web site
      3. ???
      4. You know this one

  • If it's "Smart Poker" (Score:5, Funny)

    by ike6116 ( 602143 ) * on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:25AM (#6407035) Homepage Journal
    Then does the AI cheat?

  • Article Text (Score:4, Informative)

    by daBum ( 191224 ) <yermie.hotmail@com> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:25AM (#6407039) Homepage
    For those who don't want to subscribe:

    WHEN an accountant named Chris Moneymaker won $2.5 million in the World Series of Poker last May, the chatter in the poker world wasn't focused on his skillful bluffing, his tremendous luck or even the aptness of his surname. Everyone wanted to know how a man who had never before sat down at a tournament table could clean out so many skilled professionals.

    While the Las Vegas hype machine focused on the rags-to-riches tale of a man who parlayed a $40 entrance fee into a huge pot, many poker players recognized that the amateur's success signaled the arrival of a new age in the game. Mr. Moneymaker may never have been in the same room as other players in a tournament of Texas Hold'em poker, but he had played extensively online, where the game is faster but the money is just as real. He was as much a rookie as Ichiro Suzuki, who joined the Seattle Mariners after nine years in the Japanese major leagues.

    The online poker saloons that nurtured Mr. Moneymaker, 27, are just the beginning. Many players hone their craft with simulation software that allows them to test strategies by playing out thousands or even millions of hands. Some researchers are building software opponents that use sophisticated concepts from economics and artificial intelligence to seek out the best strategy, then use the knowledge to beat human players. The experience of playing thousands of games in roadhouses and casinos is being eclipsed by a cyborg-like intelligence produced by humans weaned on machine play.

    The changes in the nature of the game are both subtle and striking. The advantages of some well-understood strategies are being tuned, and others are being abandoned. Some online enthusiasts, for instance, are even suggesting that the value of any information gleaned from watching the opponent's body for telltale tics or gestures is overrated. These so-called tells are too easily manipulated. More information comes in the pattern of bets, raises and calls. The money, they say, talks.

    The biggest factor propelling change may be the speed of technology. Players do not wait while someone shuffles and deals. Chips do not need to be counted or watched. Computers handle the accounting, often finishing hands in as little as 30 seconds.

    Steve Badger, the editor of the Web site playwinningpoker.com and winner of the 1999 World Series in a game called Omaha Hi-Lo, says that online poker halls are appealing because of their convenience.

    "You could play them every day," he said. "You're able to play two games at the same time. Or you can sit and read or vacuum or do any infinite number of things while waiting for the next hand."

    The online halls also offer substantially better rates. Most casinos pay for the lights and the dealer by subtracting either a fixed amount or a percentage from the pot. This levy, known as the rake, is often about $3 to $5 a hand in physical casinos, but about $1 or less online.

    The rake depends on the stakes, which can be lower than those at physical casinos. Some online tables have minimum bets as low as 25 cents, an amount that makes learning the game cheaper. The speed of the game, however, ends up raising the amount at risk because 60 to 100 hands can be played in an hour. Higher minimum bets of $5, $10 or more are also common at tables with the better players.

    Gautam Rao, a well-known Canadian player, said he stopped going to casinos in 2000, not long after his daughter was born, "because of the smoke and distance.''

    "I told my wife I had to find a way to play online," he said. Now, he is able to play every night between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. while his daughter sleeps in the next room.

    "The rake is much less," he said. "The number of hands is much more. There are never any misdeals. There are never any issues related to tipping. The average cost of winning a pot is so much less. It's so much more efficient."

    The speed of play lets players work through the thousands of apprentice hands faste

    • Sigh.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by peterwayner ( 266189 ) <[gro.renyaw] [ta] [3p]> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:18AM (#6407368) Homepage
      I'm a big fan of fair use. I hate the DMCA. But behavior like this just makes me wonder. The free registration at the NYT is not that much of a pain. Sheesh. The newspaper world is being very cool, at least compared to the music and movie business. Let them make a few bucks on the ads so they can pay me.

      • Re:Sigh.... (Score:3, Informative)

        by mugnyte ( 203225 ) *

        Correction: Nothing stops the NYT from showing ads to us without the reg'd required. The registration bit is a farce, and everyone pumps nonsense into it. Why put it up as mandatory? Does the NYT try to spam its readers from that input? Wouldn't it be our duty to combat spam by intentially filling it with junk?

        I let a lot of sites hog MY paid-for bandwidth with ads. This doesn't mean i have to type "Mr Goober" as my registration name on each one. The NYT is way behind in web concepts on this, IMO.

        FY

  • Poker? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mister Black ( 265849 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:27AM (#6407059)
    Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?

  • Not always what you expect (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kombat ( 93720 ) <kevin@swanweddingphotography.com> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:27AM (#6407060)

    I played strip poker with this computer I met in university once. Things were going great until I popped off the cover and found a positively ancient motherboard.

    Gross! It was like I'd just walked in on my Walkman(TM) while it was rewinding.

  • It's all about the odds (Score:4, Informative)

    by Katamai ( 632113 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:27AM (#6407062)
    To create a poker AI you just have to figure out what the odds are of getting something after your first hand. Then based on odds the computer will decide which cards to get rid of and which to go for. This will typically result in the computer not going for the long shot royal flush and instead going for the safer full house which is more likely to happen.

    A computer theoretically could be as good or even better than the average human at poker. It is able to calculate the odds of winning and is therefore able to make the best choice possible.

    What would be really amazing would be if the computer was able to calculate based on how many cards other players turn in and adjust itself as neccesary.

    Can you imagine having to try to look at the computer and imagine if it is bluffing? Talk about poker face...

    • Re:It's all about the odds (Score:4, Informative)

      by pizen ( 178182 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:49AM (#6407198)
      Your thoughts on odds are valid. However, the AI here plays Hold'em, which is very different from Draw. In addition to calculating the odds it has to account for the betting of each player on the different streets. It would be interesting if it could tell if a player was playing slow or just limping in. It would probably be difficult to figure from just one hand but over the course of a session the computer (just like real players) is going to pick up on the betting habits of the players. When I get off work I'm going to go try this thing out. If it's better than me it can only help improve my game.
    • > This will typically result in the computer not
      > going for the long shot royal flush and instead
      > going for the safer full house which is more
      > likely to happen.

      Actually, a good computer might even be MORE likely to go for the long shot royal flush. It won't worry about odds of winning the hand, but rather about expected payoff vs. risk of any given gamble. If the full house is a hundred times easier to draw to (in that particular situation, but the royal flush has a hundred and fifty times th
      • This isn't video poker, there's no fixed payout. The return is only as big as the pot. So the computer will have to calculate the odds on the pot (cost/return) and compare that to the odds of winning. In Hold`em which this bot plays, bets are determined by the rules, so you're only rarely going to see odds on the pot that are good enough to justify hoping for a royal flush. The odds on even just filling out an inside streight are 1:11 if I remember correctly, which is still not usually worth sticking aro
    • Jeez, have you ever actually been inside a casino? Nobody plays draw poker any more.

      That being said, I used to bust the computer's bluffs all the time on Intellivision Poker.

    • Poker isn't about blind luck. If a computer ONLY ever bet what it had, and what the odds of its opponent having, then it would be very easy to beat. The human knows that if the computer bets, it has a hand, and the human should fold. Similarly, if the human bets big but is bluffing, the computer would assume that the human had made his hand and fold.

      Kallahar

  • Poker face recognition (Score:3, Funny)

    by jmerelo ( 216716 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:27AM (#6407064) Homepage Journal
    is it included?

  • Tells (Score:2, Insightful)

    by My name isn't Tim ( 684860 )
    You can never learn the true art of poker unless you can read the other players tells, and unless the computer also throws in virtual signs I doubt cyber players could ever climb the ranks.

    • Re:Tells (Score:2, Informative)

      by zdislaw ( 664912 )
      You read the article, right? The guy who won the last World Series of Poker had previously only played on the internet. I think that may qualify him for "climbing the ranks." Or maybe he just went right to the top, so techincally did not climb.

      That may not be the "true art of poker" but I'm sure he's not letting it bother him too much.

    • Re:Tells (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tmhsiao ( 47750 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:43AM (#6407167) Homepage Journal
      You should read the article. A computer isn't intimidated by bluffing or aggression, and it has a better capability to analyze betting patterns, pot odds, and drawing odds.

      If you've got AK(s) and the computer has a pair of tens, your raising T$100,000 might scare some meat players out, but given the circumstances, the computer might just call you and win.

  • Addiction? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:33AM (#6407098) Journal
    Now, he is able to play every night between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. while his daughter sleeps in the next room.

    If this was UT or Quake, this entire article would be about how he was destroying his life, and getting ready to go on a rampage.

    But instead, its just a game of cards, and he's gambling with his family's money, but thats OK.
    • Is the object of the game of poker to kill virtual representations of other people?
      • No, the object of the game is to make the *real* person on the other side lose all their money.

        Not to say the blame is on the the game (see my other post responding to the the parent of yours), but if you're going there, understand what it is you're talking about.

        • So hold on...winning in a fairly contested game of skill is somehow *MORE* repugnant than killing people and laughing as their blood spatters in a realistic fashion?
          • So hold on...winning in a fairly contested game of skill is somehow *MORE* repugnant than killing people and laughing as their blood spatters in a realistic fashion?

            Like I said, look at my other post, because I'm NOT of the opinion that the game is at fault in either 3d shooters or poker...HOWEVER, if you were to blame games for anything, let's compare the both of them, shall we?

            3d shooter: Kill "virtual representations of people" as you've mentioned. No damage to the actual person, possible psycholo

    • Re:Addiction? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TrekkieGod ( 627867 )
      If this was a gambling addiciton piece, there'd be slashdot posts complaining of how you can indeed just play money games for pure entertainment without being considered an addict.

      I definitely agree with you, they're taking this "gaming addiction" too far, but there are plenty of gambling addiciton pieces out there as well...count your blessings that they're not making it to slashdot.

      I'm tired of hearing about gambling addictions. I think of them the same way you apparently think of computer gaming add

  • The Algorithm (Score:5, Funny)

    by taped2thedesk ( 614051 ) * on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:36AM (#6407131)
    while(handSucks)
    {
    screen.displayPopupAdForPorn(); // distract user
    hand.throwWorstCardUnderTable();
    hand.pullAceFromSleeve();
    }

    Of course, the bot doesn't cheat:

    """Q: Why are the bots such filthy rotten cheaters?!?!

    A: Poki does not cheat. Poki connects to the online server just like any other player, and does not have access to any other player's private cards. The server's random number generator is sound (although not as sophisticated as most online servers). Any weird or suspicious outcomes are simply the result of luck . This is a normal part of poker. If you believe otherwise, you are more than welcome to play somewhere else.""" (from the FAQ)

    I mean, come on - it's a normal part of poker :)

  • For non-robots, a simplified poker method (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:01AM (#6407266) Homepage Journal
    I have never been any good at poker... in high school, playing nickel-ante poker, I lost about $25 to just one of my friends. Typically, after about 15 minutes of play, everyone was playing with "my" money.

    But recently, I spent some quality time with a hand-held poker game, and played the "hundreds or thousands" of games as described in the article. Not enough to become an expert, but I did come up with a technique to make my 100 credits last longer.

    I hacked away as much complexity as I could. The heart of my method is to forget about the effect of getting two cards you need. The chances of getting two specific cards is something like 1/52 * 1/52 = 1/2704 -- too small to care about. So the entire method is about the next card.

    Of course, I put it online: How To Lose Less At Video Poker [littlecutie.net]. At the risk of slashdotting my own server, I'm curious if anyone can find any obvious flaws in the method.

    I found this Java-based tutorial [wizardofodds.com] that purports to generate the "optimum payout" -- it often disagrees with me, presumably because it's trying for big payouts. My method doesn't promise profit, only smaller losses.

    An important disclaimer: I've never used my method with any non-trivial amount of actual cash. Here in Texas, there are video poker machines in every Quickie Mart, but I just don't see the appeal. Now, if they would put in a Pac-Man [salon.com] machine...
    • Good effort, but the Wizard of Odds [wizardofodds.com] site you linked to uses mathematical exhaustion as opposed to you general heuristics.

      There is an outstanding product out there to train you to play "optimal" video poker (that is, make the mathematically best choice for any 5-card deal. A crippled shareware version can be found here, but this proprietary software is worth many times its' price: WinPoker [zamzone.com] (sorry Windows only, and no I have no financial incentive to plug)

      Never forget that Poker (against other people on

  • "Artificial Intelligence" in Poker- INDEED (Score:4, Funny)

    by somethingwicked ( 260651 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:01AM (#6407267)
    "Artificial Intelligence" is common in home poker games-Its called BEER

    The trick is to make sure your opponents are sufficiently fueled by "Artificial Inteligence" and you will come out way ahead
  • Okay, I know this is a lil' off topic, but as one of the (presumably) many slashdot readers who play poker...has anyone found an online poker room that you can play for real $$$ where I don't need to download some windowsware to play?

    I've toyed around with the java-based yahoo rooms (which last I checked, didn't have a real $$$ option). All of the big name poker rooms that I've seen through friends require a windows based client. I've been dying to give it a try.

    I'd also be interested in anything anyone
  • now we got Uniblab. Next we get the little jet cars that fold up into a briefcase? The nine hour work week, though - now that's science fiction.

  • Chess "AI" is really pointless. All that is needed for playing chess is a fast computer and lots of stored moves, mainly because the number of possible moves is quite finite.

    While poker is an interest game to tackle, I think I'd have to agree with others here that it is more of a people game and hard to a machine to understand the nuances of "bluffing" and other things that we silly humans do.

    What I'd really like to see is computer AI able of playing the Japanese/Chinese board game called Go at adva

  • At The Sands (Score:3, Funny)

    by mustangsal66 ( 580843 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:12AM (#6407329)
    Bad enough I have to play with newbies at the blackjack tables, now I have to play with HAL at the poker table...

    "Fold Dave..."

  • How Computers can win at poker (Score:5, Informative)

    by tpengster ( 566422 ) <{moc.retsgnept} {ta} {hsals}> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:25AM (#6407406)

    Poker is primarily an odds game, that is to say it is all math. There are three places where a decision has to be made. The first decision is, "Should I pay to see the next card?" This is called Drawing. The second decision is, "I have a decent hand, but my opponent raised me. Is he bluffing?". The third decision is, "Should I try to bluff?".

    Odds come into play everywhere. When you are Drawing, you must have the correct odds or else you will lose money in the long run. That is to say, if you have a 1 in 4 chance of hitting your straight on the next card, you must have at least 3:1 odds to Draw. (The pot must have $3 for every $1 you pay). There is also the concept of "implied odds" - predicting how much will be in the pot at the end of the hand and not just at the present.

    When deciding whether or not to bluff, you must know the odds of your bluff succeeding, and add that to the odds of you hitting your out on the next card. At that point the calculation becomes the same pot-odds calculation described above. This involves some reading of your opponent; you have to know how often he will call, and how often the bluff will be sucessful. Luckily, computers can be pretty good at modeling and seeing patterns, probably much better than humans. It seems that Neural nets and other well-developed AI techniques would be very good at modeling these behaviors and predicting future ones. Calling bluffs will require the same type of knowledge.

    Some have asked how it's possible to read patterns on the internet. Some people don't really have patterns in their game, they just call everything. These people will lose because they put too much money in the pot, they don't have the odds for the bets and calls they're making. Mostly, decent players have patterns in how they bet, for example they will bet when they only have 4 out of 5 flush cards. (A Semi-bluff). Computers have an advantage here because they can introduce a random element that humans cannot reproduce.

    The recent winner of the World Series of Poker, Chris Moneymaker, had never played in a live game until the WSOP, he had only played internet games. This probably gave him good fundamentals in reading people based on their bets, and good math fundamentals.

    Some have also questioned the wiseness of playing internet poker, since it is just "gambling". Well I'll tell you a little secret, poker isn't really gambling, poker is a skill game and especially with so many bad players out there who think it is just luck, hoping they'll get lucky, it's easy to win money. That's why the same players consistently win thousands of dollars online. For more information on poker strategy and reviews of online casinos, see this site: PokerTips.org [pokertips.org]

  • It could be harder than one could imagine... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mensa Babe ( 675349 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:35AM (#6407477) Homepage Journal
    Some people I have spoken with few days ago about this research told me they are worried that if the intelligence is too high this AI could refuse to risk its money gambling... I am not quite sure if they were serious though.

  • In "Poker playing computer will take on the best," the Edmonton Journal wrote last June (the article is no longer available for free) that there was a new poker player in town "that never sweats, never gets tired, never tips a hand and can still bluff with the best of them.

    University of Alberta artificial intelligence researchers bet their new poker computer program will be the best player in the world, perhaps within a year." And why will it the best player? Because it bluffs.

    "You have to bluff," says Jo

  • I've wondered why no one has come up with a system to play online casino poker with a "perfect" algorithm.

    Start it with $50 bucks and let it play...

    If the case is that you would always lose, even playing "perfectly" what are your chances playing imperfectly?

    If you win more often than not... let it play nightly and up it's bets.

    What am I missing?

    • Well, there are a few things to consider.

      1) It's a violation of the rules to do this on any of the online poker sites. If you're busted, you'll lose ALL of the money you've paid in. (buy in, registration, etc.) They might even press charges.

      2) Perfect poker strategy is only perfect in a vacuum. When playing against real players, you can make more money by playing imperfectly. In fact, if you always play perfectly, the game will change to conpensate for you, and leave you playing poorly.
  • This is not the full source code to Pokibot. Do not ask us for it. If it is not posted here, it is not open source.

    Not open source? <saltyPirateVoice>Man yer battlestation maties! We'll slashdot'em into submission </saltyPirateVoice>
  • Invite several people over, buy a deck of cards and a pack of beer, and play. Just turn off the computer if you feel the need to code a quick AI in lisp. It will be there for you later, ready to greet you.

  • Texas No-Limit Hold Em (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ridge ( 37884 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:00AM (#6407621)
    Poker has had quite a resurgence as of late, both due to online play and media coverage. Chris Moneymaker was on Letterman one night and the World Poker Tour [worldpokertour.com] can be caught on the Travel Channel and sometimes older ones on ESPN or ESPN2. It's actually fairly enjoyable to watch. Nothing like seeing a guy go all in with for 800 grand on a stone cold bluff whilst his opponent has a pair (you see the hole cards on the tv broadcasts, at least on the Travel Channel). Some talk smack, some wear sunglasses, some play conservative, though most are fairly aggressive. I've learned quite a bit by watching them play. As others have mentioned and as the article alludes to, the game is more mathematical than reading your opponents, but that's not really what I've seen from watching the pros on the WPT. It's all about the people, the chips, the cards, and the math all seem secondary to your read on your opponent and your style and reputation. It's all very interesting, I suggest you catch a broadcast.

  • Ro-Sham-Bo (Score:2, Insightful)

    by chad_r ( 79875 )

    This reminds me of strategies for programming Ro-Sham-Bo (Rock, Scissors, Paper). The "safest" strategy would be to randomly choose rock, scissors, or paper every time. Your winning percentage would approach 50%, but so would your opponent's. Ah, but if you're competing against other pairs of players, and they're all following that strategy, then it's just dumb luck who will win. For there to be any point to the competition, you have to assume your opponent has some non-random strategy, such that you could

  • Does anyone play checkers anymore? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by swordgeek ( 112599 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:23AM (#6407743) Journal
    No, it's not a troll. :-)

    But a few years ago, checkers was solved as a mathematical problem. There is a computer program that can play a perfect game of checkers, all the time. That project was headed by Jonathan Schaeffer, one of the people involved in this Poker AI project.

    Just a footnote, to let you all know that this group has some serious history in gaming AI.
  • Since the guy would won the World Series of Poker, was strictly an internet player, wouldn't this be an advantage?

    None of the other players would have had time to study him and know his habits, yet he would have alot of experience playing poker.

    Then again I rarely play poker, so I could be missing something.

    Thoughts?

  • God damn it, read the article before responding (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:39AM (#6407849) Homepage

    It's about low stakes Texas Hold'em [thepokerforum.com]. As I'm preaching to people who don't follow links, I'll explain that in hold'em, your hand is drawn from the best five out of your two personal ("pocket") cards, plus five common ("board") cards that everyone can see and use. You can even just play the five common cards if they're better than that 8 in your pocket. You tend to get strong hands, but then again so does everyone else. Hold'em is generally played with big tables, so chances are that someone has a strong hand each round. You don't get extended rounds of raising, and there are no huge wins to be made. Coming out on top of a night of hold'em involves long term risk management, not a single guts-or-glory Hollywood dramatic climax.

    As for bluffing, go ahead and try. There are only four rounds of betting on each hand. Experienced players will fold early, so you won't get much of their money anyway, and excitable noobs will tend to stick it out and call you out with their regular full houses and flushes, making it expensive for you to try to bluff. You'll quickly find yourself playing to your hand, not to the other players, and you won't (indeed, can't) get yourself into a steely eyes, car-keys-in-the-pot ego clash.

    I wish, I wish, oh how I wish people wouldn't predicate their discussions based on what they've learned from Mel Gibson movies.

  • A better feature would be a tutorial on how to count cards. If you don't know how to count cards or use decent strategy, the old crappy poker AI has a pretty good shot at winning.

  • Wow, that's kinda neat... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by StressGuy ( 472374 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @12:02PM (#6408013)
    The first ever complex program I wrote was, in fact, an attempt to make an intelligent poker player. It was written in BASIC for an IBM with an 8086 processor and about 7-feet long when printed out. It made ASCII representations of the cards and I had my own random number generator that used the time the program started as the "seed" value. It had an independent routine for "bluffing" and made it's more rational decisions based upon what I was to eventually learn was a pretty decent implementation of "fuzzy logic". ...problem is, it played lousy poker...and I could never figure out why. At least it followed the rules though.

  • Loki (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ka0s23 ( 688443 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @12:41PM (#6408320)
    There was a large push made by some great mathematicians in coordination with poker proffesional to make a poker "robot" they called Loki. What they found was over a large period of time it could be profitable at low limit tables, playing limit hold'em. However, once the game changed to no-limit, there was simply no way for it to deal with the fluctuating betting amounts. It could pick up on patterns and beat many online limit players.
    I would be willing to bet that they could design a sophisticated enough program to beat even higher-limit limit hold'em games, but I'm guessing right now they weren't quite confident enough to trust it with a serious bankroll!
    A poker bot which could play in no-limit tournaments would be almost impossible to program, as anyone who has played in no-limit tourneys know, its very different from cash games. Sorry if anyone allready posted about this, I didnt have time to read everything...

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