Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Kevin, Palm Beach Gardens, FL — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:57:13 GMT

Who really cares about this? The enjoyment of live poker comes from (yes, the money) defeating another live opponent. Making bold plays and watching the other fold or sweat it out on draws. Who really cares about poker bots? What is the point of this?

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Alan Boyle — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:12:19 GMT

Yes, I should add a bit about the scientific point of all this: The aim is to create better artificial-intelligence programs that can deal with incomplete information and adjust to changing circumstances (e.g. making bold plays and sweating out what the other actors in a situation are doing). Also, to create programs that interact more naturally with humans. If a robo-competitor can learn how to wait out a human opponent, it's not such a far leap to program a computer to give guidance for, say, boardroom negotiations. Or serve as an effective receptionist. Or ... well, you can imagine what might be possible, and some of it could be pretty scary. Feel free to speculate in your follow-ups.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Carlos, Chicago, IL — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:16:40 GMT

what?? The point of all this is so that one day bots will be able to take over your job.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Kermit Santos, Alexandria, VA — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:20:12 GMT

The same way that folks in the 60's made fun on "Star Trek" and now carry cellphones, I am sure that, in a couple of years, mundane, non-physical chores will be handled by computers. This is an example of such.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

no-one — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:29:52 GMT

The point of this is very soon anyone playing online without using a bot will be at a disadvantage. If poker bots become as good as the average human player online poker will die and along with it the ever increasing popularity of poker in general.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Frank Lantz — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:38:27 GMT

I don't think we need to search for a point. The point is to gain knowledge, to acquire a deeper understanding of A) the structure of poker and B) the kind of problem solving that expert players engage in when playing a complex game. Are these interesting questions? Does this exercise tell us anything new about them? Those are the only relevant justifications we should demand.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Russ, Cary, IL — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:42:59 GMT

Yea but did the bot know not to count its money while sittin' at the table?

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

S. B. Stein E.B. NJ — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:54:43 GMT

These kind of advances could provide A.I. for deep space probes and other space craft (hopefully not like HAL 2000) with the ablity to deal with problems on their own without having to rely on Earth's direction. If we can take this further, some safety and disater situations can initially dealt with by machine giving us humans a chance to fully grasp the problem

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Ken, Los Angeles, CA — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:10:14 GMT

Many people play online poker. This is very important to them.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Alan Boyle — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:18:14 GMT

I wanted to make sure to link to this archived article about poker bots and their effect on online poker:

Are poker bots raking online pots?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6002298/

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Miracle Mike — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:44:38 GMT

This country is running headlong into a bad science fiction movie. Our statesmen are simply not. They are greedy business men that will replace you with a robot as soon as they can. Billionaires prefer subjects to citizens. Hey, lets elect them to rule!

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Nolan Pomelow, Buffalo, New York — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:45:45 GMT

Come on, Al. That article is almost 3 years old. How about doing an article on what online sites do to combat bots (and cheats in general) now. That article seems to just want to scare people into thinking playing online will just get them cheated.

This story about the humans versus the bot is great news. It's a step in the direction of establishing poker as a game of skill like chess. Hopefully soon those in power will realize this so that online poker can be regulated and taxed and not abominable

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

D, MO — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:53:50 GMT

A.I. not just for space applications, S.B., but even closer to home, say, underwater exploration or perhaps failsafes for airliners where crew members are injured. There are many applications where a computer that is able to adapt to situations without human intervention could be beneficial. And no, it does not necessarily mean doing mundane tasks or taking over a human's job.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Jason — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:06:03 GMT

I wonder how the software would perform if it were playing against multiple players via a human proxy arranged so that no one knew the person was being directed by a computer?

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Richard A, Orange County, CA — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 21:01:24 GMT

Jason has a good point - what happens to the program if there are nine or ten players with different stack sizes and increasing blinds? The " pro-human" doesn't have to take chips from the computer but can do very well stealing chips from the other i.e. "donkey" humans.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Lawrence M. — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:01:27 GMT

This is just the normal way things will go from now on. And I do think that we need to fear the future. Just not yet.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

John, Spokane, Wash. — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 23:19:30 GMT

Bottom line is this is LIMIT poker, a basically empirical, statistic driven and unimaginative form of poker that pros can play in their sleep. Put a computer in a a six handed no-limit limit game with pros or the worst of amateurs and I guarantee you it would bust out.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Don — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 23:28:57 GMT

The unfortunate thing about internet chess is you never know if your opponent is cheating. A computer is far better and far faster than 99.9999% of human chess players. Poker is the last bastion where computers are not, and it makes for interesting online play. It will be a sad day when this program becomes more widely available. The cheating will become rampant.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Kent Brachman, Springfield, IL — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:11:09 GMT

And I for one welcome our new silicon overlords.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Ron Rogers Bellevue, WA — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:32:21 GMT

This was a very interesting event held. Although it really doesn't have much relevance to high stakes poker. That is a game where you play-the-player as much as you play the cards dealt to you. The only future I see for the bots is playing on-line poker where no one is physically sitting across the table from you.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

josean , miami, florida — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:39:17 GMT

the math is abstract, chess and poker are abstract too, the nature is not abstract is real, so to explain the universe is not only about numbers is about something else, that we dont understand yet. the question is the brain is better than the computer, the response is yes. the compurer is a needed create for the human being. that field-technology- do not appear in the reality , look like that we use this knowlodge as a tool for interpretation -easy- our reality, that is very far from the pure reality.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Alex W, Ontario, NY — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 04:50:54 GMT

Online poker isnt as vunerable as you might think, because of the inherent set patterns in any computer progam, its easy for poker websites to differentiate between a human and a bot. Since every regulated site has rules against bots, and they all have safegaurds to detect bots, they wouldnt last long and the player would be blacklisted from all regulated sites.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Baz Lamar — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 05:03:05 GMT

Don,

Poker is not the last bastion. There are many games where humans are far superior to computers. Computers can't think "outside the box" and many games don't have simple solutions (like poker, but complicated by incomplete information) or can't be solved (like checkers) or semi-solved (like chess) because the computation involved is astronomical. The canonical example is Go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28board_game%29

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Rob William — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 10:19:12 GMT

I guess the old poker line of "you don't play the cards, you play the man," no longer applies. Computers could not care less about winning or losing a hand of poker. Men (and women) do.

What reward is there in defeating a few million lines of computer code? Humanity shrunk a little bit as a result of this contest.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Goon, Shanghai, PRC — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:16:01 GMT

Didn't the Terminator start like this? Poker bot with AI gone wild.....

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Alice — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:23:39 GMT

Stop bellyaching! At least you'll never have to wait in a cafeteria line or bathroom line behind one of these computer pokers!

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

TheFallibleFiend@hotmail.com, LORTON, VA — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:25:18 GMT

Cheating is already rampant - chess, scrabble (literati), boggle, etc. I would be shocked if criminal enterprises (mafia, gangs, as well as individuals) have not already infiltrated and profited from online betting.

Security and law have not kept pace with technology and demand on the net. These are much more complicated issues to resolve than mere technology - and in the legal arena, they can't even get the simple stuff right.

We tolerate all sorts of abuse from miscreants. It takes a minuscule number of abusers to screw things up at first, but as more are able to profit with impunity from unethical behavior, the betas follow them. And so we have a proliferation spammers, scammers, virus writers, cheaters - with every minor step forward given great press and little about the large steps backward or the tremendous speed with which the train of technology is leaving the station before us.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

TB, Dearborn, MI — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:39:24 GMT

Hmm, where exactly is it that you guys are playing online poker in the US for $?

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Shawn Levasseur; Rockal — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:10:23 GMT

"Poker is the last bastion where computers are not, and it makes for interesting online play. It will be a sad day when this program becomes more widely available. The cheating will become rampant."

If bots could be made to play on internet sites it would be bad for net-poker.

Online poker sites could probably prevent users from using bots, with some sort of Turing Test that would lead to players being banned and have penalties built into the user agreements that forfeit their winnings.

But there would be little to prevent the sites themselves from using computerized "shills" to play on behalf of the house. Poker is an attractive gambling alternative for some because the house is seen as a neutral party, unlike other casino games where the house has the statistical edge, just merely takes a cut for providing the venue to play. But if it's known (or suspected) the house has bots playing the tables, that all goes away.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Jay P — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:48:04 GMT

I understand what the programmers are trying to-do. However poker is a game for humans only. It's what makes the game so special. Draw for draw you’re trying to determine if the guy is buffing by the way he presents him/her self. Is the computer only going to play good cards all the time? Or will try to bluff the other human player? You have to have human element for this game and for any one else to say it's not isn't a poker player.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Ali Eslami — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:54:20 GMT

Ali Eslami here, one of the players in Vancouver.

Online poker isn't ruined. First off, these bots aren't available to the public, but even if they were, they are very limited in what they can do. They can ONLY play heads=up limit poker, and that is a very limited domain. With more players added to the mix, bots are nowhere near competeing with good players.

I will admit though, I did have a hard time with these guys in the heads-up match. They are beatable, but tough in their domain. But remember, they're not exploiting. Even though they're tough TO BEAT, they similarly aren't doing their best to beat YOU. So basically, in order to minimize their vulnerability they aren't exploiting your play. This makes them very bad candidates for bots to rake in the money online. In the long run they'll probably get raked into oblivion except against weak opponents (and against those opponents humans would clean up faster anyway by pursuing an exploitative strategy).

-Ali Eslami

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

red pill junkie, Mexico city — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:48:36 GMT

Why on Earth is the guy on the photo wearing sunglasses? is he afraid the bot is going to call his bluff if his eyes are exposed?? ;-)

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Ali Eslami — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 23:39:26 GMT

By the way, in response to those of you wondering why this matters:

First off it has clear implications in poker, and that in and of itself is plenty enough to justify why the research exists. Remember, poker is a very widespread game, played by millions of people around the world. It is as widespread as many mainstream sports.

But even suppose poker was a very small niche activity. Still, poker research has many implications for other domains and fields. If the researchers were able to create learning methods that can model opponents, those same techniques can be applied to other domains. For example, bots may be developed that can figure out likely moves of an opposing general on a battlefield, based on past tendancies.

Even more exciting than this for me personally, is the idea of cooperative programs and user interfaces. If you can figure out what a human is likely to do next, then instead of opposing that "move" you can cooperate with it by, for example, providing resources up to the person that matches what they are going to "need next".

Basically, if computer programs can become more empathetic and understand the "human element" better, than the possibilities are limitless (both positive and negative)

-Ali Eslami (one of the players in the Vancouver match)
indigoae@hotmail.com

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Mike Maxwell, Laurel MD — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:16:51 GMT

Do these computers play strip poker?

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Pokernaut, Los Angeles, California — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:14:08 GMT

Why on Earth is the guy on the photo wearing sunglasses? is he afraid the bot is going to call his bluff if his eyes are exposed?? ;-)

- It is his trademark attire, red pill junkie. :)

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Andy, Mich — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:38:40 GMT

Hmm...so this is cutting edge in the AI field right now? I would have thought that getting a computer to make decisions based on incomplete information has been the goal of most AI research to date.

Does have some sinister implications though, say the life support computer runs the numbers and decides you only have a 20% chance of making it and pulls the plug on you.

Wake me up when the android butlers get to version 2.0
thanks

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Paul H., Clearwater, Florida — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 22:20:33 GMT

First of all this was a heads up limit game which is very structured. Playing no limit against a full table would have yielded completly different results. (I suspect the "pros" would crush the computer). Also for all of the people commenting that poker bots will ruin on-line poker don't you realize that the best way to improve your skills is to play against higher competition ? How do you know you aren't already up against the likes of a Hellmuth or Bruson while playing on-line. Lastly I think most average players would love the chance to play against a top caliber professional (I surely would/I wouldn't expect to win but would love the challange). If you feel these computer "bots" are far superior and would ruin on-line poker then what excatly is the difference between playing against them or playing against a live professional on-line ?

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Joe, Columbus Ohio — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 05:02:59 GMT

I dont see how a computer cant beat people at poker. Our current generation of poker programs must suck if you mean to tell me a 3.0 ghz computer cant beat a player at poker. There isnt anything involved in poker other then guessing what the other player has and most of the entire game is simply statistics which computers i would imagine have a slight advantage at over any person.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Joe, columbus Ohio — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 05:09:22 GMT

As for bots online the only thing stopping bots online from destroying players is simply the overhead of web based programming. All the constant postbacks and the screen scraping kills the cpu time which then is wasted. Minus the screen scraping for cards, and the constant postback web crap a cpu can beat a person in poker even the best of players in any poker domain. I refuse to believe otherwise any game where most of it comes down to math a computer if programmed by a good programmer will win. Online i dont think bots are anything to worry about screen scraping alone would waste most of a cpus resources. Unless someone very clever gets a bot net and with distributed computing or p2p can get groups of computers to all perform parts in parallel but that would be too complex for most people.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

John Die, Seattle, Wash. — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:05:44 GMT

I don't get it, bots can't even do chip tricks.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Zach — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:34:25 GMT

To Joe a couple comments up - you honestly do not know what you are talking about. a) A bot is not a web based program. b) Creating an image of a window is not CPU intensive at all. c) Determining what the cards are from a predefined patern and color for the suit (using a four color deck) for two hole cards and five board cards takes less CPU than taking the screen shot - both combined could be down a thousand times over before you can blink once. -- On a side note, building an online bot that is very good (in limit or no-limit) really is not that hard. This project was working on AI, building a good bot doesnt require extensive AI. It requires instead a complete set of predetermined instructions that are controlled based on the players the bot is playing. One could sit on an online poker site for six months just tracking all play, creating a database of every single thing done by every single player. Then the bot would just need to reference what that it "probably" means when a specific player does a specific thing when that specific player is in that betting position, has that many chips - and after the previous things had happened involving that specific player in the previous hands. (specific player could be substitued for by a composite if there is not enough data available on that player) Yes - a modern PC can handle that with CPU cycles left over to do anything else you might normally do on a computer. The biggest problems any poker player (even pro's) have is bordem, letting go, and getting to cute. A bot has none of those problems. All that said - there is no way possible to make an unbeatable bot in no-limit poker - just like there is no unbeatable human. A bot is going to call an all in (as would a human) a flop of AQQ with when its holding AA or QQ - either of which can be a losing call.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:49:21 GMT

QFT at Zach.

the most basic ABC poker based on patterns and algorithms could be very easily coded to beat the low and medium stakes poker.

however, humans could also do this, perhaps better.. so i don't really see the fuss. if you're seriously afraid of losing to bots, i will hazard a guess that you are a losing player yourself

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Leela, Montville NJ — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:29:46 GMT

My husband, brother in law and father in law are OBSESSED with on-line poker, sure they win some and lose some. But when they're in a hand that only one card can beat, thats the card that comes on the flop. They call it bad beats, I call it "the computer knew"
Personally, I think they are insane that they think they can beat the computer. But as long as they enjoy it as a hobby I dont mind, its when he starts dipping into savings to put into his account.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Pokerdreamer78 — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:12:35 GMT

Me I use WinPokerbot , it's a free and working robot playing texas Hold'em Limit Online.
I win a lot of money with this bot, it's very nice.
It works on Play Money and Real money so you can try it before playing with real money.
See here: http://www.winpokerbot.com/en/home.html

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Dennis McCoy, granite Shoals, Texas — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:14:24 GMT

Maybe we should allow this in elementary schools or even US Congress. Reasoning & THINKING!!! a winning pair of novel ideas that just might save this country. Of course, "2 terms and OUT" would also do wonders too.

Humans beat poker bot ... barely

Wal — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:02:43 GMT

There are many new poker bots on the market which applied Artificial Intelligence in their gameplay.

An example 'Smart PB' from
http://www.pokerbot-smart.com/