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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.

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Maybe good players get beat by worse players, but great players would not lose to you or me. It just wouldnt happen. Could you imagine bobby fisher losing a chess match to me? It simply wouldnt happen in 100 games.

but if you or me played against the best poker players in the world, we would win a few times.

The chess board is very complex, but it there are limited number of moves and calculations. If you move to a certain spot, the computer can calculate your next most probable move. In poker, the game can change when the flop or turn or river hit. The computer won't know whats coming and would have a much harder time adjusting to the ever changing situations. not to mention a full table of players and having to adjust to each and every players differences. Chess is heads up, so its easier for a computer to adjust.

With poker you have players getting up and new players coming in. So not only does poker have more variables heads up, it has a greater level of difficulty when playing against a full ring.

There is no doubt that programs can be made to win at poker. I just don't think it will ever be good enough to dominate the game like deep blue was able to dominate chess.