Bots - quote from a chessmaster to discuss

I disagree that it would be easy to program a computer to beat world class players.

[Innocentius]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1. High poker skill requires a lot of intellegence. Artificial intellegence is still very weak. If you check current computer games, AI gets better and better, but only to a certain degree. There is no game, which a human player cannot beat after a certain amount of training.


[/ QUOTE ]
Except for chess, ofcourse. After decades of development, chess bots reached parity with the best human players.
If even 1% of funding devoted to chess expert systems went into poker expert system, it would be capable of beating world class poker players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Incorrect. Poker is a game of incomplete information, chess is not. What is the basis for this ridiculous statement?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are too hasty in calling this statement incorrect. I'm not saying that it is 100% correct, but I'm also inclined to believe it. The fact that poker is a game of inperfect information does not in itself imply that writing a bot for poker would be more difficult than doing it for chess. It's easy to imagine an incomplete information game for which it is trivial to write a good computer engine.

To a previous poster, I would also like to point out that there is considerably more to chess programming than a couple of basic principles. And controlling the centre above all else is just plain wrong.

The problem with the idea of a bot is that a computer functions like "If condition A is true, do [this]". This is only passable at the weakest games, but I have a hard time visualizing how a bot is going to decide to "sometimes" do this or that, or to know when it's static moves have been found out and alter them in a correct way.

[carlo]

I believe the computer that beat Kasparov was programmed by apprx. 8 computer/chess experts but what was telling was the ability to load in a wealth of previous games in which the computer was able to choose the best and strongest play.

There are opening books and game books as for an example the King's Indian Defense-there's enough literature out there to load up thousands of KI defense games and therough a logical deductive process have the comnputer make the best choice. No imagination, no creativity,etc.

The programmers also had the advantage of old Kasparov games. The deck was stacked-he had to play against "a machine" without imagination. In a real sense chess is limited in it's options and the deck could be stacked in this way.

Have the computer play thousands of games and allow Kasparov study its games-he wouldn't lose but you always have the possibility of the most boreing games on record.

Poker is not at all like this but a type of rigidity could be programmed into a bot but I believe you know what happens when you become rigid in poker [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img].

carlo

P.s. The computer didn't beat Kasparov, the 8 Human PHD's and chess history did.

[itsmarty]

[ QUOTE ]
After decades of development, chess bots reached parity with the best human players.
If even 1% of funding devoted to chess expert systems went into poker expert system, it would be capable of beating world class poker players.

[/ QUOTE ]

People always behave as if chess and poker are the only games people want to beat with computers. Significant effort has gone into Go programs as well, with only marginal success.

Martin

[Rudbaeck]

Bots will most likely totally dominate humans heads-up in a not too distant future in both limit and no limit texas hold'em. Because that game is completely soluble using game theory.

Now as soon as you add a third player it's not been shown that it's soluble. For full ring the problem is even worse.

In the long run I think there will be bots that play better than most strategy forum regulars here do. If they will in fact be able to beat the best in the world is less certain.

And a bot that can both beat Doyle at a full table and at the same time extract more from the fish than he does is probably way further off than a manned mission to Mars.

The problem is that the math to solve multiplayer non-cooperative partial-information games doesn't exist other than in embryonic form today. So any implementation of said math is even further off.

[Innocentius]

[ QUOTE ]

The problem is that the math to solve multiplayer non-cooperative partial-information games doesn't exist other than in embryonic form today. So any implementation of said math is even further off.

[/ QUOTE ]

I liked your post, and agree with most of what you wrote. But the fact that the math to completely solve the games isn't there does not in itself mean that it's impossible to write a very good bot. Chess isn't solved either. The best engines are all heuristic based, and I don't see any obvious reason why this wouldn't work for poker. (Observe that I'm not saying that it will certainly work, only that I am not convinced that it cannot work.)

[greygoo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
After decades of development, chess bots reached parity with the best human players.
If even 1% of funding devoted to chess expert systems went into poker expert system, it would be capable of beating world class poker players.

[/ QUOTE ]

People always behave as if chess and poker are the only games people want to beat with computers. Significant effort has gone into Go programs as well, with only marginal success.

Martin

[/ QUOTE ]
The problem with Go is that there are just way more variantions plus the fact that stones can leave and then reappear on the board. Plus evaluation function is harder there, but computers ill get there, trust me. And there is no dispute that chess program research by far had way more attention through the years.

Chess programs don't outplay humans in terms of strategy, pressure or understanding of the game. Their evaluation function and computing capabilities, coupled with openings book and table-bases, just present human player with a problems he is incapable to solve most of the times. He makes a subtle mistakes, computer capitalize on that. Computers don't know [censored] about chess and they don't need to.

It's only a matter of time an effort, before it happens with such a simple game as poker. You don't need to know what human is thinking. You just create a model, sofisticated enough that human would be incapable of figuring out, therefore he would not be able to play optimally against it.

Computers will always surpass humans in competitions within limited context. Only a matter of time and complexity of context.

bots are more difficult in poker because there is a bigger randomness factor with what cards can fall and the actions to each situation. Chess bots have only to know the basic principles, opening strategies and the like. For instance, knowing that controlling the center of the board above all else is easy enough to program, but how do you program a computer to make the best possible move in poker knowing that any number of random cards can fall on 3 different streets. In poker, you would just have to program it to make the "mathematically correct" decisions solely based on odds.

[TheHammer24]

Nice find. Good post

[ QUOTE ]
bots are more difficult in poker because there is a bigger randomness factor with what cards can fall and the actions to each situation. Chess bots have only to know the basic principles, opening strategies and the like. For instance, knowing that controlling the center of the board above all else is easy enough to program, but how do you program a computer to make the best possible move in poker knowing that any number of random cards can fall on 3 different streets. In poker, you would just have to program it to make the "mathematically correct" decisions solely based on odds.

[/ QUOTE ]

Solid point