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Humans Dominating Poker Super Computer
New submitter IoTdude writes: The Claudico super computer uses an algorithm to account for gargantuan amounts of complexity by representing the number of possible Heads-Up No-limit Texas Hold'em decisions. Claudico also updates its strategy as it goes along, but its basic approach to the game involves getting into every hand by calling bets. And it's not working out so far. Halfway through the competition, the four human pros had a cumulative lead of 626,892 chips. Though much could change in the week remaining, a lead of around 600,000 chips is considered statistically significant.
How are we supposed to have any idea what a cumulative lead of 626,892 chips means without knowing how many total chips there are? If there are 650,000 chips then the game is almost over, but if there are 1,000,000,000 chips then there hasn't been any movement at all.
This is some pretty poor journalism.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
So let me get this straight. At the start of the game the computer calls all bets and then it lets the other players train it and change their strategy to take advantage of that training? And they thought this would beat a seasoned professional poker player?
This is basically a beginning poker player (fresh blood) but who is more consistent. A pro will absolutely clobber it.
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
I don't know about the technology or the algorithm(s), but the linked article is certainly nonsense.
“You could use the same basic framework to do robust decision making like trying to come up with insulin and glucose monitoring plans [for diabetes patients],” says Neil Burch, a computer scientist at the University of Alberta who helped design a poker-playing AI earlier this year. “You get regular snapshots of glucose levels, and you have to decide how much insulin you should take, and how often.”
Look, I get it. Nobody wants to admit that they're spending their grant money this way because it's fun to get a computer to play Hold 'em. But that's got to be the dumbest justification I've ever read. Human metabolism is complex, but the pancreas doesn't bluff.
~Idarubicin
Lt. Commander Data struggled with the intricacies of poker as well.
Gamertag: WyleType
Playing poker is a lot more about reading your opponent. figuring out if they are buffing or if they really have something. No computer can do that. Not at least at this point in time.
I almost did a double-take with this story; a few months ago I read about computers having solved heads-up _limit_ Texas hold’em: http://arstechnica.com/science...
Well, it looks like the computer can win when there is a limit, but humans can still win when there is no limit.
I guess that's not too surprising: the limit really cuts down the number of choices, making a brute-force calculations more practical, and brute-force calculations are what computers do best. Without the restrictions of a limit, the AI needs to be a lot more clever. I wonder how long it'll be until computers win at this.
There's no way the computer is going to win at Strip Poker.
I read the internet for the articles.
And the computer here is a patsy called a calling station.
From the article: "but its basic approach to the game involves getting into every hand by calling bets".
And what facial expressions would the computer betray?
That's not what arbiter1 meant.
"Reading your opponent" doesn't rely on facial expressions or tells when you are playing online poker.
First of all, this is the link that the story should have included. It includes updates of the scoreboard, etc. On it you will see that even though the brains are collectively beating Claudico, the computer is actually over $100,000 ahead against Jason Les, a feat that almost no human could match. Yes, Claudico is down against the other three, but these are the top players in the world, and most human pros would get clobbered much worse by these guys. Are we really so hard to impress? This is the first time that something like this has been tried, and already, the computer is performing on a level that most poker pros would love to reach.
Humans were designed over a long, intense period of selection to be able to perform deep, self-referential thinking, ie to be able to know that the other guy knows that they are bluffing/lying/have some particular knowledge, and make plans accordingly. It is probably the single task that humans are best at. I'm not saying that having a machine beat humans at poker will mean the Singularity has arrived, but when they go one step farther and start beating us at politics (which requires the same skillset as poker but with more complexity, plus the ability to integrate other types of knowledge), then it's all over.
I must say that I am looking forward to it. Humans are much better at beating others in the race to gain power than they are at actually ruling and making decisions for other people.
Yeah that's a restatement of my first-order analysis. At a table of four, you'll have the best hole cards 25% of the time, so you should fold if your cards aren't in the top 25% of possible pairs. There are patterns you can learn to know approximately how many hands beat yours.
Further analysis brings out the fact that sometimes you can call cheap, get a good flop, then have someone bet large into your strong hand. So if you're playing against a table who bets small preflop and large postflop, you might call more often. On the other hand, if there are several potential raisers behind you, calling the one bet might not let you see the flop without calling more, so you should fold more often rather than getting stuck between multiple raises. It just depends on who you're playing against and your position relative to the button.
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