Human poker pros versus AI…
"The showdown between CMU’s computer program Claudico and poker pros Doug Polk, Dong Kim, Bjorn Li and Jason Les has been designed to ensure that the outcome is scientifically significant and not a result of luck.
Claudico will play 20,000 hands of heads-up no-limit Texas Hold’em with each of the four poker pros. In addition to the large number of hands, the players will be paired to play duplicate matches—Player A will receive the same cards as the computer receives against Player B, and vice versa. One of the human players will be in isolation, to prevent any comparison of the cards. The same arrangement applies to Players C and D.
Play will proceed in two 750-hand sessions per day for 13 days over a two-week period, with one day set aside so the human players can rest."
It sounds interesting at a glance, but I think a computer that could pull off & invent new card tricks would be better. All this is going to do is produce an algorithm that wins a majority of poker hands (or other strategy, like counting cards), and then casinos will have to double the number of baseball bats they carry.
I had a Texas Hold’em on my Blackberry 4 years ago. It’s AI was just awful. It felt as if they knew what were your cards were.
But mostly when I had perfect cards (Aces) they all would fold, or if I tried to raise price (by like $50) they all would freak out and fold.
If they designed a Texas Hold’em AI that played like real human players in play-money pickup games on X-Box, the AI would go all in on the first hand, go all in on every other hand (like it’s a coin toss game or something), and when you finally have a decent hand to put into play, anticipating the windfall you’re about to receive from these ATMs, they would fold after the flop.
