Neverlose

[David Steele]

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I am curious if the 2+2 experts feel that poker is like chess, where you can build a program (like BigBlue in the chess world) that can beat all (or nearly all) humans?


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Yes. ( It was Deep Blue BTW )

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BUT, is poker like this? Isn't it more player-specific, where there might not be a "best" play at any one time, depending on how well the player knows the opponent(s)?


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Poker can not be beaten with a chess program, true, but here is nothing to stop the programmers from statistically modeling the opposition and perhaps have a better model then human players are able to make. On the other hand some game theory type non-exploitive strategy might work well enough.


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... short handed

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It has been reported that the short handed bots have been very strong already.

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How could this be programmed into a computer, especially when your opponents on PP change tables so quickly?

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How can humans play either? I would think it would be easier for the computer to access its player data ( should any be available ) faster then humans. If none is available then the bot and the human will have to start modeling from scratch.

D.

[NLfool]

I believe theCount or something like that actively worked and played against a bot called poki and said that there were big gains in regards to bot play in poker. He maybe the expert you're looking to talk to

[glen]

"How could this be programmed into a computer, especially when your opponents on PP change tables so quickly? Games immediately break down and start up again, it's not like you know the computer will be playing with Kasparov for an extended period of time."

When neverlose was first being accused, a bunch of player all sat in a room and talked about him. Thecount1729 said he thought that neverlose was the kind of bot that compiled all of the hand histories that it has played against you, and then learns from them. So, at first you might be able to hang with it, but then it would just get better and better against you, i.e. see how prone you are to cr the turn with picked up flush draws, notice if you always bet an ace high flop when he doesn't raise preflop etc. . . .

[Kevin J]

I believe Mason has already written about this and if I remember right, his conclusion was that poker is a much more complicated game than chess. At least from a programming standpoint.

[sammy_g]

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I believe Mason has already written about this and if I remember right, his conclusion was that poker is a much more complicated game than chess. At least from a programming standpoint.

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Mason is a great poker player, but he is not a computer scientist. I enjoyed his Poker Essay books. The essays about computer poker were my least favorite, however. Just because poker playing software doesn't beat good players today does not mean computers will never beat experts. Remember the first chess computers were an absolute disaster. For a long time, the consensus among chess experts was that no computer program would ever beat a master, and even moderately skilled humans could take apart the early chess programs. Look at chess software today.

Computer poker is still in its early stages.

A tremendous amount of research and effort went into computer chess over many years. This is why chess programs are so good. This hasn't happened for computer poker yet, although with the recent poker boom I suspect it is on horizon.

[bobbyi]

Your analysis of computer chess is very inaccurate. You refer to all of these advances in chess software, and then don't name a single one. And I can't think of any big ones. Yes, we've made some improvements, such as the massive library of openings and endgames that Deep Blue had, which certainly would not have been in a chess program in the 1970's (and couldn't, due to lack of disk space, etc.). And I believe it did have some clever tricks in its software. But ultimately, it played the whole middle game by using basic min-max with alpha-beta pruning. This is not new or innovative. This is the same technique we've always used. The ascent of chess AI was entirely a victory of hardware. Many years ago, computers were simply not fast enough to look far enough ahead to be decent chess players. You could take the best AI programmers today and give them an unlimited amount of time to write a program to play chess on a 1970's computer, and they wouldn't be able to make a player that could beat something an undergrad could write that has the advantage of running on modern hardware. Deep Blue won because it had a specialized chip designed to do alpha-beta in hardware. Thus, it could run the algorithm unreasonably fast. Remember, the whole reason Deep Blue was built was as a showcase for IBM's hardware-building talent, not their programming skills.

This isn't at all similar to the state of the art in poker software. What we need is good algorithms and, as far as I know, we don't really have them yet. The stuff coming out of Alberta and elsewhere is decent and it is possible that we can write software good enough to play profitably against the right opponents, but we are still software-bound, not hardware-bound, and those problems are much harder to solve.

[Kevin J]

Very informative. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it even a fact yet that a computer has been built that the best human player cannot beat? I know a human lost to one recently, but was that conclusive? Being human, maybe he just had an off match. Has this computer been proven to be able to consistently beat grand masters? Thanks.

[sammy_g]

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Your analysis of computer chess is very inaccurate.

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I basically said

1. Computers today play much better than early chess computers.
2. Experts once thought no computer would ever beat a human chess expert.
3. A lot of research has helped advance the state of computer chess.

I don't see how these points are inaccurate. Hearing poker experts say that computers will never play expert poker reminds me of what chess experts once said.

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But ultimately, it played the whole middle game by using basic min-max with alpha-beta pruning. This is not new or innovative. This is the same technique we've always used.

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Early on, there was a rift among AI researchers as to whether a strategic AI approach or a brute force approach was best. Some leading researchers in the computer chess field like Hans Berliner at Carnegie Mellon were solidly in the first camp. Not everyone took the brute force approach.

It's unfrotunate that the less interesting approach turned out to be more effective, particularly as computer hardware got better.

Still, even the basic minimax algorithm with alpha-beta pruning has been bolstered by improvements like the null move heuristic, the killer move heuristic, and selective extensions, among others. Selective extensions incidentally were developed by the Deep Blue team. Deep Blue was a strong opponent because of its massive number of parallel processors, but also benefited from some advances to chess algorithms.

A lot of this is discussed in the book "Behind Deep Blue (Hsu)" which is a really interesting read.

I do concede that chess computers are stronger today simply because computers are faster, but the software has gotten better, too.

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The stuff coming out of Alberta and elsewhere is decent and it is possible that we can write software good enough to play profitably against the right opponents, but we are still software-bound, not hardware-bound, and those problems are much harder to solve.

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Yeah, we are far from expert play. Computers have a perfect memory of their opponents and can caculate all of the probabilities, but we need to teach them correct strategy. Easier said than done. But my point is just because they don't play well today doesn't mean they are *incapable* of playing well.

[Kevin J]

I agree. I use to fancy myself a decent chess player and was quickly humbled by playing against the computer. There's no doubt that programming computers to play poker is still in it's infancy and will become MUCH better. But I always thought this was interesting...

I was discussing this subject with a friend of mine who is quite an excellent backgammon player. I was amazed to hear him say that a computer cannot even come close to beating a world class backgammon player. More so than chess, backgammon is a game of math, right? I would think a computer could easily come up with the exact mathematically best play in backgammon and stomp even the best human player. But this isn't the case. I don't understand it all, but it has something to do with the doubling cube and other intangibles that a computer cannot take into account.

Anwyay, I was floored by this because I always thought chess was a much more creative game (than backgammon), with infinite ideas, positions, etc. And I think poker is more akin to backgammon than it is to chess. There's just too many intangibles. I think it will be a while before a computer can beat the best poker player. Just my opinion as I know nothing about programming, etc.

[schroedy]

I am not sure that your friend is right about backgammon.

I am not a player, but the doubling cube is as much a function of mathematics as anything else in backgammon.