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How A.I. Conquered Poker

nytimes.com

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Re: How A.I. Conquered Poker

#61

Post by archontes »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #51
isaacg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, in Magic: the Gathering, the best bots are far worse than most players. Part of the difficulty is that the rules are so complicated that there are only a couple of complete rules implementations. Beyond that, it's an imperfect information game with far more actions per game than poker, so optimal-solver techniques haven't seen success.

I think this is purely a resource issue, e.g. if Google Brain decided to make an MtG bot I would be fairly confident it would be superhuman. Even real time strategy games like Starcraft are looking like they're on the cusp of superhuman bots (Alphastar was competitive as Protoss against elite players, but did not consistently beat them).

I doubt very highly it would be able to sit at a game of commander. Four players with 100 card singleton decks would be an absolutely enormous space to operate in.

Re: How A.I. Conquered Poker

#62

Post by lawrenceyan »

noambrown wrote: post #38
jstx1 wrote: post #27

But it hasn't conquered it! I kept searching the article for some new recent breakthrough that I've missed but it's not there. Yes, solvers like Pio have been around for years and limit holdem has been essentially solved for a while but nobody plays limit holdem anyway. The two most popular games (no-limit Texas holdem and pot-limit Omaha) are still unsolved.

Bots are superhuman in no-limit Texas hold'em. Libratus beat top humans in two-player in 2017 and Pluribus beat top humans in six-player in 2019: https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aao1733 https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aay2400 It's shocking that the reporter didn't mention these results or anything else more recent than 2015.

Noam is being too humble, but he’s one of the primary creators of Libratus/Pluribus as an fyi.

Re: How A.I. Conquered Poker

#63

Post by cortesoft »

isaacg wrote: post #20
marcodiego wrote: post #6

Is there any remaining logic game which AI hasn't become superhuman? IIRC Monte Carlo tree search has done wonders in this area.

As far as I know, in Magic: the Gathering, the best bots are far worse than most players. Part of the difficulty is that the rules are so complicated that there are only a couple of complete rules implementations. Beyond that, it's an imperfect information game with far more actions per game than poker, so optimal-solver techniques haven't seen success.

Wouldn’t the fact that the game is constantly changing, with new cards being added and old ones being removed, also make it harder to solve?

Re: How A.I. Conquered Poker

#64

Post by treme »

soferio wrote: post #39

What teaching or training tools are out there for a very average player at no limit Texas hold’em who just wants to get at bit better to a respectable level at a modest time commitment , and does not need to be a pro-level player?

www.runitonce.com 25$/mo essential membership will give you enough from beginner to semi pro easily.

Re: How A.I. Conquered Poker

#65

Post by cortesoft »

bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #30
smallerfish wrote: post #21

I think there's room for a "battlebots meets online poker" product. Imagine buying your bot a real money budget and setting it loose in a tournament to combat other bots.

Online poker has already been evolving in this direction. Any serious player who plays online will use player assistance tools (such as PIOsolver). Top level poker AI such as Pluribus has already proven that it can hold its own and beat the best online players such as linuslove. It is well known that online poker sites are full of poker bots now. There are programs to help users try to tell if they are playing agains…

I would expect bots to add random delays? They could even determine real player delay distributions and emulate that.

Re: How A.I. Conquered Poker

#66

Post by cortesoft »

paxys wrote: post #43
JacobThreeThree wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You are worried that people will cheat in online poker, or what? The norm for online chess is to not play for money, whereas the norm for online poker is to play for money, often for large sums. Of course the game with higher stakes is more likely to attract cheaters.

> whereas the norm for online poker is to play for money, often for large sums That is definitely not the norm. Most people are playing recreationally. Heck it is illegal to pay poker online with real money in 44/50 states in the US.

Yeah, but playing poker for not real money is a very different game. Players have no incentive to not take huge risks, so it is a completely different game.

Re: How A.I. Conquered Poker

#67

Post by jstx1 »

Reflecticon wrote: post #59
jstx1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Books (there's very few good ones) Training videos 1-on-1 coaching PioSolver (and other similar software) For any of these to stick, you need to spend some amount of time studying by yourself; just consuming learning material and playing isn't enough.

Could you recommend a couple of books for a start?

The Mathematics of Poker, by Chen & Ankenman - this one doesn't age because it's really fundamental if you want to understand things from the ground up. But it won't seem that practical at first.

Applications of No-Limit Hold 'em, by Matthew Janda - this one goes into specifics about how to think on each street, how to build a good strategy etc. Some of the details will be different from the latest theory because the book was released in 2013 but it's still a very solid read if you want to level up.

Re: How A.I. Conquered Poker

#68

Post by meetups323 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #24
smallerfish wrote: post #21

I think there's room for a "battlebots meets online poker" product. Imagine buying your bot a real money budget and setting it loose in a tournament to combat other bots.

Isn't that just algorithmic trading?

Classic games tend to be more fun than New York horoscopes. For me at least, there's something fundamentally profound about solving a logical puzzle better than anyone in history, that just isn't there in guessing which way some lines are going to go.

Re: How A.I. Conquered Poker

#69

Post by eurasiantiger »

paxys wrote: post #43
JacobThreeThree wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You are worried that people will cheat in online poker, or what? The norm for online chess is to not play for money, whereas the norm for online poker is to play for money, often for large sums. Of course the game with higher stakes is more likely to attract cheaters.

> whereas the norm for online poker is to play for money, often for large sums That is definitely not the norm. Most people are playing recreationally. Heck it is illegal to pay poker online with real money in 44/50 states in the US.

And how do you suppose they enforce that?

Re: How A.I. Conquered Poker

#70

Post by [deleted] »

splonk wrote: post #52

(Former pro and high stakes player, occasional solver developer) This is actually one of the best poker articles I've ever seen in generalist media. Not too clickbaity, reasonable high level overview of game theory, a (very accurate IMO) quote from old pro Erik Seidel about the state of the game just 15 years ago, a discussion on variance vs. EV and results, and most importantly, an emphasis on math, randomization te…

[deleted]
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