[Innocentius]

[ QUOTE ]
Let me make this comparison between poker and chess and the use of computers.

if you take the worlds greatest chess player and have him play against an average joe chess player, he will win 10 times out of 10.

However, the greatest poker player can easily lose to an average poker player (especially online). Look at the world series of poker as an example. The best players in the world havent won in 4 years. Its random new guy after random new guy. And at the WSOP the great players have the added benefit of reading players. If you took the best 5,000 chess players and had them compete in a big tourney the best players would win each and every time.

there is clearly no comparison between chess "bots" and poker "bots."

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think this argument is convincing. First of all, chess isn't as exact a science as you imply. Good players get defeated by worse players all the time. But I agree that the variance is much smaller than in poker.

This however, does not mean that you cannot program a bot to play as well as a human. Of course the bot could still get its virtual ass kicked in any one session, but it would win in the long run against worse opponents. By your argument, you couldn't even talk about good poker players, since they don't win every time. What I mean is that I am not convinced that you cannot program a bot to play poker as well as the best human players.