Computer poker player: Difference between revisions

01 December 2022, Clarification 05 December 2022.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Heaven |first=Douglas |date=2019-07-11 |title=No limit: AI poker bot is first to beat professionals at multiplayer game |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02156-9 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=571 |issue=7765 |pages=307–308 |doi=10.1038/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/ |access-date=2023-05-17 |website=Scientific American}}</ref>

Like in the games of [[chess]], [[Go (game)]], 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 |language=en}}</ref><ref> https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade9097{{Cite Science.journal “|last1=Meta Fundamental AI Research Diplomacy 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”reasoning |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade9097 Meta|journal=Science Fundamental|language=en AI|volume=378 Research|issue=6624 Diplomacy|pages=1067–1074 Team|doi=10.1126/science.ade9097 (FAIR)†,|pmid=36413172 Anton Bakhtin, and Markus Zijlstra|bibcode=2022Sci... 22 Nov 2022, Vol 378, Issue 6624, pp.1067M 1067|s2cid=253759631 |issn=0036-10748075}}</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.

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>

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.

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