Human vs poker-playing computer

The two brilliant poker players will soon try their luck against computer in Canada. A $50,000 showdown between a computer and two of the world's top poker players will be held on July 23, 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The computer, named Polaris by its University of Alberta creators, is designed to play to its opponents's weaknesses, seamlessly switching gears from cautious under-betting to aggressive bluffing. "With poker, the key thing is unpredictability," said Jonathan Schaeffer, one of the lead artificial intelligence researchers on the Polaris project. A computer is very good at predicting odds ... it can do that very quickly. But in poker, if you play cautiously, then the opponent can pick up on that and they start exploiting that ... so the goal of (our computer) is to be unpredictable for the human."

The high-stakes tournament is part of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence conference being held at a Vancouver hotel, says Canada.com. Spectators will watch professional players Phil Laak and Ali Eslami in a mind-vs.-metal match with the savvy simulator, each with the opportunity to take home $25,000 if they win all four of their games.

Laak recently won NBC's Poker After Dark, and Eslami runs in some of the most elite poker circles in the world.
from http://www.gamblinggates.com/gambling_stories/


Although artificial intelligence research has produced computers that are virtually unbeatable in strategic games such as chess and checkers, Polaris may have a tougher time with the role of sheer luck in poker.

"I'm not at all sure that the computer is going to win this thing, precisely because it is so difficult to learn about the style of your opponent," said Oliver Schulte, a cognitive scientist who once worked with the Polaris creators.

So who will take the pot at the shortcoming tournament of the smart men and computer?

And what is to happen to the whole online poker industry, once poker-playing computers become able to play and bluff like poker pros and better than those dogs playing poker on the painting? Is this a new face of online poker rooms, faceless at all?

Finally, will online poker rooms be sheating on bona fide poker players using this new weapon of mass poker destruction, those advanced fast thinking and cleverly bluffing computers pretending to be nice ladies and gentemen, to strip players of their stakes?