Computer poker player: Difference between revisions

A '''computer poker player''' is a computer program designed to play the game of [[poker]] (generally the [[Texas hold 'em]] version), against human opponents or other computer opponents. It is commonly referred to as '''pokerbot''' or just simply [[Computer game bot|bot]]. As of 2019, computers can beat any human player in poker.<ref>Nature. “DeepMind AI topples experts at complex game Stratego”. Anil Ananthaswamy. NEWS

01 December 2022, Clarification 05 December 2022.</ref><ref>Nature.{{Cite “journal |last=Heaven |first=Douglas |date=2019-07-11 |title=No limit: AI poker bot is first to beat professionals at multiplayer game.” Douglas|journal=Nature Heaven.|language=en 11|volume=571 July|issue=7765 2019.|pages=307–308 https://www|doi=10.nature.com/articles1038/d41586-019-02156-9|pmid=31312056 |bibcode=2019Natur.571..307H |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref> {{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Dana G. |title=AI Learns What an Infant Knows about the Physical World |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-learns-what-an-infant-knows-about-the-physical-world/?amp |access-date=true2023-05-17 |website=Scientific American. “AI Learns What an Infant Knows About the Physical World.” Dana G. Smith, July 11, 2022.}}</ref>.

These bots or [[computer programs]] are used often in [[online poker]] situations as either legitimate opponents for humans players or a form of [[cheating in poker|cheating]]. As of 2020, all use of Real -Time Assistance (RTA) or automated bots is considered cheating by all online poker sites, although the level of enforcement from site operators varies considerably. {{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

Use of player bots or computer assistance while playing online poker is prohibited by most, if not all, online sites. Actions taken for breaches are a permanent ban and confiscation of winnings. {{citation needed|date=February 2023}} One kind of bot can interface with the poker client (in other words, play by itself as an auto player) without the help of its human operator. Real-Time Assistance (RTA) is another method of using computer programs. RTA is when a human player uses program called an “solver” such as PioSOLVER or PokerSnowie,<ref>Seven Games: A Human History. Chapter 5. Oliver Roeder, 2022. Publisher: W.W. Norton and Co.</ref>, running on a different computer,<ref> https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF17/20131210/101570/HHRG-113-IF17-Wstate-EggertK-20131210.pdf Testimony of Kurt Eggert Professor of Law Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law Before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade At a Hearing Entitled: “The State of Online Gaming” Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC December 10, 2013</ref>, to make their decisions.

The issue of unfair advantage is twofold. For one, bots can play for many hours at a time without human weaknesses such as [[Fatigue (medical)|fatigue]] and can endure the natural variances of the game without being influenced by human [[emotion]] (or "[[tilt (poker)|tilt]]"). Secondly, since 2019, the computer program [[Pluribus (poker bot)]] is successful enough at reading bluffs, calculating odds, and adjusting to strategy that it consistently beats professional poker players at 6-player no-limit Hold’em .<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brown |first1=Noam |last2=Sandholm |first2=Tuomas |title=Superhuman AI for multiplayer poker |journal=Science |date=30 August 2019 |volume=365 |issue=6456 |pages=885–890 |doi=10.1126/science.aay2400|pmid=31296650 |bibcode=2019Sci...365..885B |s2cid=195892791 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref> https{{Cite web |last= |first= |date= |title=Carnegie Mellon and Facebook AI Beats Professionals in Six-Player Poker - News - Carnegie Mellon University |url=http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2019/july/cmu-facebook-ai-beats-poker-pros.html Carnegie Mellon|access-date=2023-05-17 University|website=www.cmu.edu “Carnegie|language=en}}</ref><ref> Mellon{{Cite andweb Facebook|last=Marr AI|first=Bernard Beats|title=Artificial ProfessionalsIntelligence inMasters Six-PlayerThe Poker:Game ‘Superhuman’of cardPoker shark– achievesWhat newDoes AIThat milestone.”Mean JulyFor 11, 2019.</ref><ref>Humans? |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2019/09/13/artificial-intelligence-masters-the-game-of-poker--what-does-that-mean-for-humans/amp/ |access-date=2023-05-17 |website=Forbes. “Artificial Intelligence Masters The Game of Poker – What Does That Mean For Humans?” Sep 13, 2019.|language=en}}</ref>.

While the terms and conditions of poker sites generally forbid the use of bots, the level of enforcement depends on the site operator. Some will seek out and ban bot users through the utilization of a variety of software tools. The poker client can be programmed to try to detect bots although this is controversial in its own right as it might be seen as tantamount to embedding [[spyware]] in the client software.{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} Another method is to use [[CAPTCHA]]s at random intervals during play to catch automated bots, although isn’t effective against Real-Time Assistance.

In aBoth brick and mortar casino, ashills house player does not subvert the fairness of the game being offered as long as the house is dealing honestly. In anand online setting the same is also true. By definition, an honest online poker room that chooses to operate house bots wouldare guaranteenot thatsupposed the house bots did notto have access to any information that is not also available to any other player in the hand (the same would apply to any human [[shill]] as well). The problem is that in an online setting the house has no way to prove their bots are not receiving sensitive information from the card server. This is further exacerbated by the ease with which clandestine information sharing can be accomplished in a digital environment. It is essentially impossible even for the house to prove that they do not control some players.

Like in the games of [[chess]], [[Go (game)]], [[Jeopardy!]], and many other games, [[artificial intelligence]] systems beat even the best humans at poker.<ref> {{Cite web |last=Intagliata |first=Christopher |title=This Artificial Intelligence Learns like a Baby |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/this-artificial-intelligence-learns-like-a-widdle-baby/ |access-date=2023-05-17 |website=Scientific American. “This|language=en}}</ref><ref> Artificial{{Cite Intelligencejournal Learns|last1=Meta likeFundamental aAI Baby.”Research AugustDiplomacy 6,Team (FAIR)† |last2=Bakhtin |first2=Anton |last3=Brown |first3=Noam |last4=Dinan |first4=Emily |last5=Farina |first5=Gabriele |last6=Flaherty |first6=Colin |last7=Fried |first7=Daniel |last8=Goff |first8=Andrew |last9=Gray |first9=Jonathan |last10=Hu |first10=Hengyuan |last11=Jacob |first11=Athul Paul |last12=Komeili |first12=Mojtaba |last13=Konath |first13=Karthik |last14=Kwon |first14=Minae |last15=Lerer |first15=Adam |date=2022-12-09 |title=Human-level play in the game of Diplomacy by combining language models with strategic reasoning |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade9097 Christopher|journal=Science Intagliata|language=en |volume=378 |issue=6624 |pages=1067–1074 |doi=10.1126/science.ade9097 |pmid=36413172 |bibcode=2022Sci...378.1067M |s2cid=253759631 |issn=0036-8075}}</ref>. Poker is a game of [[Perfect information|imperfect information]] (because some cards in play are concealed) thus making it harder for anyone (including a computer) to deduce the final outcome of the hand. Because of this lack of information, the computer's programmers used to have to implement systems based on the [[Bayes theorem]], [[Nash equilibrium]], [[Monte Carlo simulation]] or [[Artificial neural network|neural network]]s, all of which are imperfect techniques. [[Pluribus (poker bot)|Pluribus]], however, perfected poker by only looking ahead a few moves to determine what action to take, rather than attempting to evaluate all moves until the end of the game.

AI broke through to superhuman performance in poker during the 2010s, with the following timeline. In 2015, computers solved heads-up limit hold'em via [[Cepheus (poker bot)|Cepheus]]. Around 2018, [[Libratus]] demonstrated superhuman ability in heads-up no-limit hold'em. In 2019, [[Pluribus (poker bot)|Pluribus]] (a newer version of Libratus)<ref> {{Cite web |last1=Magazine |first1=Smithsonian |last2=Solly |first2=Meilan |title=This Poker-Playing A.I. Knows When to Hold 'Em and When to Fold 'Em |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/poker-playing-ai-knows-when-hold-em-when-fold-em-180972643/ |access-date=2023-05-17 |website=Smithsonian Magazine. “This Poker-Playing A.I. Knows When to Hold ‘Em and When to Fold ‘Em”. Meilan Solly, July 15, 2019.|language=en}}</ref> demonstrated superhuman ability at six-player no-limit hold'em, the most commonly played single variety of poker in the world.<ref> {{Cite web |title=Bet On The Bot: AI Beats The Professionals At 6-Player Texas Hold 'Em |website=[[NPR]] |url=https://www.npr.org/2019/07/11/740661470/bet-on-the-bot-ai-beats-the-professionals-at-6-player-texas-hold-em NPR. “Bet On The Bot: AI Beats The Professionals At 6|access-Player Texas Hold 'Em.” Merritt Kennedy. July 11, 2019.date=2023-05-17}}</ref>. In 2021, Microsoft released the older poker-playing program, Libratus, commercially, which then beat four professional poker players in a 20-day long poker competition at Rivers Casino.<ref>“AI’s Disruption Of The Strategy Gaming Space Proves That Machines Are Getting Smarter.” Forbes.

Annie Brown. Nov 10, 2021,04:42pm EST.</ref>.

In January 2015, an article in ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]''<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1126/science.1259433|title=Heads-up limit hold'em poker is solved|first1=Michael|last1=Bowling|first2=Neil|last2=Burch|first3=Michael|last3=Johanson|first4=Oskari|last4=Tammelin|pmid=25574016|volume=347|issue=6218|date=Jan 2015|journal=Science|pages=145–9|bibcode=2015Sci...347..145B|citeseerx=10.1.1.697.72|s2cid=3796371}}</ref> by Michael Bowling, Neil Burch, Michael Johanson, and Oskari Tammelin claimed that their poker bot [[Cepheus (poker bot)|Cepheus]] had "essentially weakly solved" the game of heads-up limit Texas hold 'em.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Game Theorists Crack Poker |agencyvia=Nature |journal=Nature |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/game-theorists-crack-poker/ |author=Philip Ball |date=2015-01-08 |accessdate=2015-01-13 |doi=10.1038/nature.2015.16683 |s2cid=155710390 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |newspaper=Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/computer-conquers-texas-hold-em-canadian-researchers-say-1420743623 |title=Computer Conquers Texas Hold 'Em, Researchers Say |author=Robert Lee Hotz |date=2015-01-08 }}</ref><ref>{{cite podcast |work=Quirks & Quarks |title=Poker Computer Takes the Pot [audio interview] |url=http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/quirks-quarks-for-jan-10-2015-1.2895561/poker-computer-takes-the-pot-1.2895568 |date=2015-01-10 |host=Bob McDonald}}</ref>

T. Sandholm and A. Gilpin from [[Carnegie Mellon University]] started poker AI research in 2004 beginning with unbeatable agent for 3-card game called Rhode-Island Hold 'em. Next step was GS1 which outperformed the best commercially available poker bots. SinceIn 2006, poker agents from this group havestarted participatedparticipating in annual computer competitions. "At some point we will have a program better than the best human players" – claimed Sandholm., Hiswhose bot, [[Claudico]], faced off against four human opponents in 2015. In 2017 the program's latest software, [[Libratus]], faced off against four professional poker players. By the end of the experiment the four human players had lost a combined $1.8 million of simulated money to Libratus.<ref>{{cite news | url = http://mwc-files-dev.weidmueller.com/dominoqq/news/articles/Poker-Online-Pkv-Games-Gacor-Resmi-Dan-Terpercaya | title = Daftar Situs Poker Online Pkv Games | date= 31 January 2017 | accessdate = 2 February 2017 | publisher = Bloomberg | author = Joshua Brustein | newspaper = Bloomberg.com }}</ref>

In the summer 2005, the online poker room Golden Palace hosted a promotional tournament in Las Vegas, at the old Binions, with a $100k giveaway prize. It was billed as the 2005 World Series of Poker Robots. The tournament was bots only with no entry fee. The bot developers were computer scientists from six nationalities who traveled at their own expense. The host platform was Poker Academy. The event also featured a demonstration headsupheads-up event with Phil Laak.

In the summer 2007, the [[University of Alberta]] hosted a highly specialized headsupheads-up tournament between humans and their Polaris bot, at the AAAI conference in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The host platform was written by the [[University of Alberta]]. There was a $50k maximum giveaway purse with special rules to motivate the humans to play well. The humans paid no entry fee. The unique tournament featured four duplicate style sessions of 500 hands each. The humans won by a narrow margin.

The final poker contest was not public. When the [[Pluribus (poker bot)]] program consistently beat professionals at 6-hand no-limit Hold’em, the result was quietly announced on a Facebook post.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/poker-playing-ai-knows-when-hold-em-when-fold-em-180972643/|title=This Poker-Playing A.I. Knows When to Hold 'Em and When to Fold 'Em|first=Meilan|last=Solly|website=Smithsonian}}</ref>.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140105223817/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6002298/ MSNBC Article - 2004-Sep]