Poker-Playing Robot Will See Your $50, Human, and Raise You to Obsolescence
PC Authority is reporting the end of humans playing poker could be coming sooner than we think, as some high-tech poker software called Polaris is currently playing against human players during the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
Polaris is the brainchild of software developers in and artificial intelligence group at the University of Alberta in Canada, and started its WSOP run on July 3rd. Its first few opponents were Stoxpoker.com coaches Nick Grundzien and Ijay Palansky, as well as poker pro Matt Hawrilenko. Each of those players has won more than $1 million playing poker professionally.
The WSOP poker games are a rematch of sorts for Polaris, which lost its first primetime match in July 2007 to poker professionals Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Ali Eslami. After the loss, Polaris went on to win two matches and one draw.
The format at WSOP will be the same as 2007: seven-card limit Texas Holdem, with each match comprised of 500 hands. Duplicate hands will be dealt to human and computer, which is meant to balance out the randomness of the cards and test the skills of each player.
U of A researcher Michael Bowling said statistics are on the side of the computer in this match up, so much so that it is theoretically possible for Polaris to play a “perfect game.”
“It’s possible, given enough computing power, for computers to play ‘perfectly,’ where over a long enough match, the program cannot lose money,” Bowling told PC Authority. “Humans will always make some mistakes, meaning the program will have an advantage.”
