Champions Declared In AI Poker Tournament

the_newsbeagle writes "The annual computer poker competition has just wrapped up, in which artificial intelligences battled each other over the (virtual) Texas Hold 'Em table. A researcher who worked on one of the top programs, the University of Alberta's "Hyperborean" program, has blogged about this year's competition and entrants for IEEE Spectrum. His first post explains the rules of the game and why it's tougher for a computer to win at poker than at chess; his second post describes Hyperborean's strategies, and the third gives the results and takes stock of Hyperborean's performance."

Comments

Re:Mindgames

[betterunixthanunix]

According to the human players, poker is largely about mind games.

Really? The pros I have heard have spoken about probabilities, trying to determine your opponents' strategies (are they betting conservatively? do they bet on weaker hands more frequently than expected?), and measuring expected returns quickly. Tells and psychology seem to be a small part of their strategy, and unsurprisingly, professional poker players defeat the AI players despite the fact that computers have no psychology to play against.