Poker Faced Computer Beating Top Card Players

If you think it should be easier for a computer to win at poker than at the highly intellectual game of chess, think again. The human element makes poker a much more complex challenge.

"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."

Useful poker skills
The poker computer project may have practical applications beyond the card room. For example, Bowling said poker-like 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."

Artificial Intelligence
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.

This year, a stronger version of Polaris - one that learns how to adapt to an opponent's strategy in midgame - triumphed over seven top-ranked humans.

One on one
So far, the system plays a relatively simple game of two-person Texas Hold'em. The next goal is to take on games of three or more players. That will be a new challenge for the programmers behind the computer. As it is, there is no ideal strategy for such games.

A poker-faced laptop was sufficient to manage the system. During the game, Polaris analyzed its human opponent's style of play and adjusted its strategy accordingly. For example, the system plays more aggressively to get the human to 'fold'. It does so by challenging the human competitor to make more decisions, thus err more often.

"Now that we've lost, I'm itching for a rematch," said Jay Palansky, one of Polaris' opponents. It seems that people are not willing to accept that a computer can beat them. Surely a few more tournaments and the poker world will realize it has a challenger.