Poki Poker program...

[Wrecker]

I used Poker Academy Pro to apply Ed Miller's SSHE concepts to expand my game. As a result my BB/100 increased by 300%. Poker Academy Pro must be conditioned by at least 2500 hands played using the same profile which you establish on your initial startup. This program constantly adjusts it's strategy to your play as your hands played increases, it's not a static sparing partner. It's also loaded w/statistcal tools to dig as deep into your play as you care to go. Recently a hand history converter for it was written Poker Academy Hand History Converter by Caeddyn. This really increases it's power by adding Poker Tracker analysis to the mix. Buy it - it's a no brainer.

[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.

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

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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

[Buccaneer]

I was disapointed with my copy of Turbo Texas Holdem. Either it is not very good or it is easy for a person to adjust to the computer opponents even for someone learning the game like I am.

What confuses me is that even if you play exactly the way the advisor suggest you can still loose a lot. I also have found many ways to deviate from the computer advisor and do well on hands that the advisor just screws up. I found the advice given to be totaly wrong quite often.

Does anyone have experience with both of them that would allow them to offer a compairison of the two?

I am considering sending Turbo to ebay and purchasing Poki. Thoughts about this appreciated.

[celiboy]

http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/

Here's more info about it.

[Wrecker]

My comments were directed only to Poker Academy Pro. However your correct in that the advisor configuration when shipped is a little screwed up. I never relied on it personally. My use of the program was as a tool to aid me in implementing SSHE's concepts. As I stated in my original reply to BoxLiquid a purchase decision as far as this product is concerned is a no brainer. As far as Turbo Texas Holdem is concerned it is a much earlier product designed around more of an expert based system and with the exception of running simulations is somewhat limited. I'm a fairly new player myself and I wanted to build as solid a foundation as I could given my limitations(advancing age - read as short memory) so I needed something that would allow repetition to span the memory gap(drill, drill, drill). I'm very pleased with the results, and am now capable of multitabling(4 currently) and maintaining a decent BB/100. Again, this product is the best on the market and one of the better investments I've made. Your mileage my vary.

Regards, Wrecker [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[blackize]

I read the paper that U Alberta wrote on the subject. Dont know why I got confused and said Alabama earlier...probably because Canada sucks. But seriously, I understand that optimal game theory says to call down with nothing occasionally, but I was playing against the version that supposedly learns from your play. I had not shown down a hand worse than Ace high in 20 minutes and yet it would still call down with Q high or something equally bad. For a game that supposedly learns your patterns, it wasnt very quick to pick up mine.

[waffle]

Which paper you read? If it was the one about 'optimal' strategies, you obviously didn't read it very closely: Optimal strategies operate in a vacuum and do not rely on opponent modeling or prediction. It does not "supposedly learn your patterns". Perhaps you are confusing 'optimal' and 'maximal'? These terms are clearly explained in their papers.

Which bot did you play? Vexbot (maximal) and sparbot (optimal) are the LHE bots to be afraid of, but Vexbox needs a few thousand hands against you before it starts kicking your ass.

[blackize]

I read the paper thoroughly. It talked about both optimal and maximal strategies and their trial runs against "world class" players. I believe I was playing against one of the learning bots, and granted that 20 minutes of hands isn't enough to develop a pattern shouldnt the bot notice I havent shown a hand worse than Ace high in every hand we have played? Lord knows I notice something like that within 5 minutes of a heads up match and take full advantage you would think that such a sophisticated AI would do the same. Frankly I was very disappointed in it's performance.

[Buccaneer]

I think you have made up my mind for me!

I sure got a lot of work to do on my game and my mind. I know no program can do all the work but I like you need to drill.

[Bikeboy]

I've been using this program for the last month and it's done wonders for my limit game. I've got the settings adjusted so my opponents are very agressive, just like real low limit hold 'em.