In New AI Benchmark, Computer Takes On Four Top Professional Poker Players

HughPickens.com writes: Stephen Jordan reports at the National Monitor that four of the world's greatest poker players are going into battle against a computer program that researchers are calling Claudico in the "Brains Vs. Artificial Intelligence" competition at Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh. Claudico, the first machine program to play heads-up no-limit Texas Hold'em against top human players, will play nearly 20,000 hands with each human poker player over the next two weeks. "Poker is now a benchmark for artificial intelligence research, just as chess once was. It's a game of exceeding complexity that requires a machine to make decisions based on incomplete and often misleading information, thanks to bluffing, slow play and other decoys," says Tuomas Sandholm, developer of the program. "And to win, the machine has to out-smart its human opponents." In total, that will be 1,500 hands played per day until May 8, with just one day off to allow the real-life players to rest.

An earlier version of the software called Tartanian 7 (PDF) was successful in winning the heads-up, no-limit Texas Hold'em category against other computers in July, but Sandholm says that does not necessarily mean it will be able to defeat a human in the complex game. "I think it's a 50-50 proposition," says Sandholm. "My strategy will change more so than when playing against human players," says competitor Doug Polk, widely considered the world's best player, with total live tournament earnings of more than $3.6 million. "I think there will be less hand reading so to speak, and less mind games. In some ways I think it will be nice as I can focus on playing a more pure game, and not have to worry about if he thinks that I think, etc."

Comments

Mind games

[Layzej]

not have to worry about if he thinks that I think, etc.

I think he's wrong on this. A computer would still need to consider what his opponent thinks he holds and raise accordingly.

Re:Mind games

[Rockoon]

I think he's wrong on this. A computer would still need to consider what his opponent thinks he holds and raise accordingly.

Isn't necessary for chess... the top competitive chess programs (like the foss stockfish...) are not the best suited to beating humans... they still beat humans repeatedly, without mercy, game after game after game. Even the world (human) chess champion (Magnus Carlsen) admits that playing one of these engines is like repeatedly ramming your head into a wall.

Re:Count cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the computer be prohibited from counting cards? Humans may bluff, but they cannot fake statistics.

If you are not counting cards, you are playing poker wrong. This is not blackjack with multiple decks.

Re:Count cards

[Anonymous Coward]

In Texas Hold 'em, you see your own two cards and the up-to-5 community cards each hand, and the deck is shuffled between hands. Everyone knows what cards have been seen and what have not all the time without any card-counting skill.

Less Mind Games?

[tomhath]

I think there will be less hand reading so to speak, and less mind games.

Isn't that what makes the game so interesting? Any good card game involves messing with your opponent's head.

Texas Hold'em is not complex

[ichabod801]

It's poker that's dumb enough to be on TV. If they want a real challenge they should play seven stud.

Re:A Strange Game

[GuB-42]

In fact poker has rules (antes, blinds) where the whole point is to make not playing a losing move.
In a global thermonuclear war, it would be like making unused bombs self detonate in one's country after some time.

Re:Count cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Your replies aren't quite making this clear for some reason, but counting cards is a strategy for blackjack, not poker. In poker, the deck is shuffled after each hand, so there is nothing to count. Of course, using whatever information is available to estimate the value of the hands' of your opponents is part of the basic strategy of poker that every sane player, including this computer, uses.

Re: Count cards

[Rockoon]

No, it doesnt depend. All the cards that you have seen are visible to you for the entire hand. Card counting is about remembering statistics about cards that you have seen but are no longer visible.

The guy that you linked to thinks that knowing how many outs you have is "card counting" -- no. you also apparently think so, which means that you cannot possibly have anything to add on this subject (and your ignorance on this subject is not a secret to you, so why are you pretending?)

Crappy, sensationalist reporting.

[bradley13]

TFS refers to TFA which refers to another TFA, and all of them are pathetically written. Here's a link at CMU discussing the competition. This is the second link in TFS, but it's not clear that all of the other links in the first paragraph are just trash.

In any case, a couple of points and/or musings:

• 1500 hands per day, 6 days per week, for two weeks running. I only play at a hobby level, but...isn't that a whopping lot to expect of the human players? Any serious players out there who can comment?
• One of the pros expects fewer "mind games". But mind games are part of the game - if this is a decent AI, shouldn't he be in for more mind games?
• The hands are "prepared". On the one hand, this bothers me, because we must assume that the researchers do not (even subconsciously) select hands that their AI can win. On the other hand, the reason for the preparation (only discussed in the CMU article - all of the "journalists" failed to understand this point) is so that they can play duplicate, in support of better scientific results.

As a final note: may I please encourage submitters and/or our illustrious editors to not fluff up submissions with links to crappy articles that miss most of the important points? Just the source link would have been enough - it's a good article with real information written in actual English.