master level bot created?

[Stu Pidasso]

I have poker academy pro. Both Sparbot and Vexbot suck. I forget which one but when the board had a broadway straight showing with no flush possible, I could get the bot to fold with a check raise on the river. I wrote the writers of the software and they said they found a glitch which would cause the bot to do that.

Stu

[Rudbaeck]

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2. A poker algorithm that beats particular opponents in a particular game at a rate reasonably close to the maximum possible level.
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2. is significantly harder, as it is basically 1. plus the learnings and adjustments. And it's debatale if it will ever be +EV to do this properly. It's not too valuable against world class opponents anyway and it is hopefully difficult to make anhy money on it against poor opponents.

This all hinges on one thing: that there is a game theoretical approach to poker that is not exploitable. This is not completely obvious, since the relationship between algorithm strengths could be non-transitive even for optimal algorithms.

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A bot capable of winning 2BB/100 in the Party 15/30 game doesn't have to be non-exploitable to do so! A bot that plays SSH strategy and does player profiling based on hands played, coupled with a datamining facility would still be exploitable. An aware opponent would play counterstrategies. But those counterstrategies give the aware human a miniscule advantage, while the bot still has a small to humongous advantage over non-aware humans. So if it loses pennies to our aware human it doesn't matter, because it's raking in the dough from fishes.

My game has plenty of leaks, and is so exploitable it's silly. But I still make money, and lots of it. Because of the simple fact that there are few players skilled enough to play counterstrategies to TAGs, and of those a very small subset even bother. Scrutinizing my play for leaks is far down on the EV hierarchy. (For opponents, obviously not for me!) They can and should spend that effort where it matters more, extracting more from weak players. I highly doubt anyone decides to focus on an 18/12/3 opponent to see if they could possibly extract 1/8th of a bet extra from him every 100 hands while the sea is still full of fish!

[The once and future king]

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Head. Sand.

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Head. Arse.

[CRF250X]

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Head. Arse.

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Ah, I see you're in deep.

[Cosimo]

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Any bot worth anything wouldn't be sold. Noone would pay what it would be worth.

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Why? Because you say so?

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A bot worth anything would probably be worth millions. Maybe two or three licenses could be sold before the games dry up. Note that with a good enough bot, you'd run it for one seat at every table at the mid to high limits. 1BB/100h at 60h/hr at even 5-10 is $1000 a week, enough to pay for the hardware to run the bot. Every subsequent week is pure profit.

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Meanwhile, IRL, I point you to WinHoldem

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That bot was worth about $0, from what I heard about it.

[Cosimo]

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A bot that plays SSH strategy and does player profiling based on hands played, coupled with a datamining facility would still be exploitable. An aware opponent would play counterstrategies.

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You'd have to know it was a bot, and if you suspected that, then the poker site probably would, too. At least, it'd be in your interest to advise them of the possibility.


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there are few players skilled enough to play counterstrategies to TAGs

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Sure, most of us have big leaks. Some of my leaks are miscounting outs, not betting for value, etc -- decisions that a bot wouldn't make. The biggest technical hurdle for bot-makers is ajusting to opponents, especially opponents that will themselves adjust to their opponents. I'm a crap player at the micros, and even then I'll play tighter against a fellow TAG. It's trivial to code enough game theory into a bot to thwart other TAGs (at least compared to writing the rest of the bot).

First, I have to ask why is a University making a poker bot? Don't they have some real research to do.

A winning bot will be certanly made. All it has to do is have 16% VPIP bet with the nuts, call all raises and it will beat the Party .50/1 game.

There will always be competition between bot makers and huge corporations like Party, UB and others. We all know who the winner of this competition will be. Internet poker casinos have a lot of money, they make more from rake in one day than a poker bot maker could in a lifetime of succesful poker bot making. Plus, party cotrols the source code, they can change it and screw up the bot maker without investing too much money.
I'm surprised that there is still a poker bot thread every week. There is nothing to be afraid of, you think Party is going to ruin the integrity of its bussines by alowing poker bots to take its rake and more importantly scare the fish away? There is just no way that will happen. Internet casinos hold all the cards they are not stupid like the people that belive in poker bot take over, santa clause, the easter bunny, and calling an all in to catch their two outer. As long as there is fish there will be internet poker.

[Tuco]

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Why? Because you say so?

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Because economics says so.

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Are you suggesting that if Winholdem would have been great instead of bad, no one would have bought it?

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Are you suggesting that Winholdem can be used as an analagy to a program that could literally win millions of dollars for someone? If you are, im done arguing with you.

Tuco.

[thewildone]

Many don't see a threat
But skeptics – and there are many – argue the complexities of the game and the changing strategies ensure that creation of a program that can “read” opponents’ cards using screen scanning techniques and respond in real time is years away at best. They point to the handful of commercial products that purport to give online players significant advantage, which they roundly deride as woefully inadequate, as proof today's bots are no match for humans.

Rao and his fellow believers have a ready answer: A bot capable of playing against the best humans already exists.

The University of Alberta’s Computer Poker Research Group has developed an artificially intelligent automaton known as “Vex Bot,” capable of playing poker at the master level, though as yet it can only apply its gambling genius to two-player games. Vex Bot has been used by researchers to test the frontiers of artificial intelligence – and as the basis for a commercial poker tutorial program, Poki’s Poker Academy -- but some fear it may become a blueprint for programmers with more sinister motives.

says the scanning of opponets cards is only a few years away though that is kind of....

anyway this was a http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6002298/ article. thought it might be kind of interesting!

[KJ o]

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A bot capable of winning 2BB/100 in the Party 15/30 game doesn't have to be non-exploitable to do so!

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You are right. My point was:

It is *easier* to write a poker program that beats world class opponents in a non-exploitable way than it is to write a bot that beats crappy opponents on a maximum or close to maximum level.

A lot of people in this thread have argued that the opposite is true, or a t least that it's exceedingly hard to write a world class level poker program.