Going Like Sixty
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A bot has beaten a top poker professional at a popular poker game called Limit Texas Hold ‘em. Its the same game you see all over the cable channels, except there is a limit on the money one can bet. The computer is called Polaris and it beat some of the best poker pros 3 games to 2 with one draw. Some humans are saying it was just beginners luck, that it takes a long winning streak to prove that the robot is superior to the human when it comes to games. Gary Kasparov never quite had the same cache when beaten by a computer, and his ego rivals those of top poker players. Place your bets on whether this will be a made-for-television event soon.
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"Poker is a completely different game," said computer scientist Michael Bowling, the leader of a Computer Poker Research Group at the University of Alberta, Canada.
"In chess or checkers, you have perfect information. There are no secrets on the board," Bowling said. "But in poker you don't know the other person's cards. The basic computer techniques used in chess can't help you in poker."
The poker computer project may have practical applications beyond the card room. For example, Bowling said pokerlike skills might be useful in bidding auctions where multiple companies are competing for government contracts or buyers are hunting deals on eBay.
"There is a lot of uncertainty there," he said. "Should you wait or bid? The same things apply in poker."
Bowling's team launched Polaris five years ago as a project in artificial intelligence. At first it did well against amateur players but couldn't beat professionals. Last year, it narrowly lost a match against two poker pros in Vancouver, British Columbia. (Video)
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