Poki Poker program...

[BoxLiquid]

Just wondering if anyone has bought this or heard good info about this program. Thomas Keller was endorsing this product which was kind of interesting. There is a person named neverwin that claimed this helped his short-handed and heads-up game and he's a good player I assume, since he plays 300/600 stakes frequently. Before paying 95 bucks I'm wondering if anyone on this forum has some feedback or insights about this prog before I get it.

[ChipLeader]

Ive never heard of the program but neverwin is an incredible player. Im definately going to look into it, though these programs are usually worthless.

[blackize]

I have played it. The program is basically a calling station.

[johnc]

Is it as weak as Turbo Texas Holdem?

[FredJones888]

you can adjust it to play however you want. its based on university research and they have several good bots for different purposes.

[phifediggy]

yeah, university of alberta.
poki's prob the best app of its sort out there.

[Dov]

I bought it and played a lot with the Vexbot HU. It helped my game by showing me how I can be exploited.

Basically the program was able to pick up on things like I was folding to a turn raise too often. Then it pounded me with the info.

It did help my game, but I haven't used it in a while.

I think it is an OK product depending on your level of development.

[blackize]

Never played turbo holdem. I played in the trial the University of Alabama had set up so I couldnt set it to play however I wanted, but it was supposedly playing "optimally". However it frequently would call to the river with 1 overcard to the board and no draw.

[jtr]

University of Alberta. They are Canadians.

[jon_1van]

1st let me start off by saying the Poki has several heads up versions. Some of those versions are harder than others. I think the original version of Poki tried to play heads up "optimally". In game theory "Optimally" means "cannot be beaten". Playing paper/rock/scissors optimally would be like playing rock, paper, and scissors each with probability 1/3. Notice that anyone who plays this strategy can't be beaten by any other strategy in the long run. But, this strategy won't beat a moron who ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS plays rock either so take the word optimal with a grain of salt.

The problem is that heads up holdem is much more complicated than paper/rock/scissors. So actually figureing out an "optimal strategy" is very very difficult. The Alberta team made a valient effort to reduce the complexity of the problem as best they could without effecting the playing ability of the resulting Poki bot.

Which brings us to this problem.

[ QUOTE ]
However it frequently would call to the river with 1 overcard to the board and no draw.

[/ QUOTE ]

Believe it or not this is actually correct if the bot is going to be "optimal". This way if you are trying to beat the bot you can't just bet,bet,bet,bet your way to victory. The bot will every now and then call you down with something like Q high. So, if the bot didn't call you down like this sometimes you could exploit this weakness and beat the bot.

Later on the bot was evolved to exploit weakness of its opponents. I have not played that version of the bot. But another poster said that it was at least competent

For a detailed explination of the older bot look here
academic paper about heads up holdem