[FishAndChips]

Ah, but computers play chess quite differently than humans do. Tactically computers are almost perfect. They don't blunder away pieces, miss mates in 7, or fall for many stalemate traps etc. However, even the best programs, like Fritz and Shredder, tend to play a strategically inferior game.

By keeping positions "closed", and making moves with long term strategic advantages, Grandmasters can often thwart the computers computational powers with superior strategic play. I honestly don't even believe that what computer programs do is "think" while playing chess. They simply created millions, or billions ,of board positions and score each one. The move that leads to the highest score is made. The programmers have previously done all the programs thinking, and all the program does is essentially calculate. When your TI 85 calculator adds 2+2=4 [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] is it "thinking"? But I digress...

Chess programs prove that computers can calculate and play chess very well with a good algorithm, but it also shows how strategically awful they can be in situations that call for the computer to make deductions with imperfect information (that is the computer can't see all moves required for mate and thus makes moves while the result of the game is still uncertain.) This is why getting a program out of it's opening book has often proved a good way to combat it.)

All of these programs have what is known as the horizon effect, and that is the point beyond which it calculates. If a computer makes a move that looks good to its evaluation function that sees 40 moves in advance, but loses after move 41, it doesn't "know better." This horizon effect is essentially the point at which chess becomes a game of imperfect information for the computer, and it is at this point that computers fail miserably.

I think poker computers can be made to play solid poker, but I think they will not be anywhere close to top human players for many years to come. Things like knowing when a player may be on tilt, or when someone is likely to change gears would be tough for a program to adapt to.

There is some credence to what people refer to as "feel" and "instinct" in poker, and when combined with a good knowledge of game theory and mathematics, I believe that a human can play at a higher level than what a computer program can muster. You could write code that tries to cover such things, but humans have thousands of years of evolution that make the psychology of the game second nature, while a computer must be taught all of this within the constraints of a program developed by a select group of programmers etc. I just don't think computers will be there for some time.

Poker offers frequent opportunities (even more so than chess) for computers to have to make deductions in situations that they are unfamiliar with. When this happens their strategic weaknesses become a liability and much of its calculation and statistical power may be nullified. In short, man still rules tha machine. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]