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Poker Tournament for LLMs

pokerbattle.ai

51–60 of 212 posts

Re: Poker Tournament for LLMs

#51

I have PhD in algorithmic game theory and worked on poker. 1) There are currently no algorithms that can compute deterministic equilibrium strategies [0]. Therefore, mixed (randomized) strategies must be used for professional-level play or stronger. 2) In practice, strong play has been achieved with: i) online search and ii) a mechanism to ensure strategy consistency. Without ii) an adaptive opponent can learn to exp…

That's interesting, because you show a fundamental limitation of current LLMs in which there is a skill that humans can learn and that LLMs cannot currently emulate.

I wonder if there are people working on closing that gap.

Re: Poker Tournament for LLMs

#53

I have PhD in algorithmic game theory and worked on poker. 1) There are currently no algorithms that can compute deterministic equilibrium strategies [0]. Therefore, mixed (randomized) strategies must be used for professional-level play or stronger. 2) In practice, strong play has been achieved with: i) online search and ii) a mechanism to ensure strategy consistency. Without ii) an adaptive opponent can learn to exp…

> LLMs do not have a mechanism for sampling from given probability distributions.

They could have a tool for that, tho.

Re: Poker Tournament for LLMs

#54

I have PhD in algorithmic game theory and worked on poker. 1) There are currently no algorithms that can compute deterministic equilibrium strategies [0]. Therefore, mixed (randomized) strategies must be used for professional-level play or stronger. 2) In practice, strong play has been achieved with: i) online search and ii) a mechanism to ensure strategy consistency. Without ii) an adaptive opponent can learn to exp…

FWIW, I’d bet some coin that current CharGPT would provide a genuine pseudo-random number on request. It now has the ability to recognise when answering the prompt requires a standard algorithm instead of ordinary sentence generation. I found this out recently when I asked it to generate some anagrams for me. Then I asked how it did it.

I asked chatgpt for a ramdom number between 1 and 10. It answered 7, then i asked for anpther, and it answered 3.

Re: Poker Tournament for LLMs

#55
post #49

Imo, this shows that LLMs are nice for compression, OCR and other similar tasks, but there is 0% thinking / logic involved: magistral: "Turn card pairs the board with a T, potentially completing some straights and giving opponents possible two-pair or better hands" A card which pairs the board does not help with straights. The opposite is true. Far worse then hallucinating a function signature which does not exist, i…

Amunsingly, I have read 10 hands and I got the reverse impression you did. The analysis is often quite impressive even it is sometimes imperfect. They do play poker fairly well and explain clearly why they do what they do.

Sure it's probably not the best way to do it but I'm still impressed by how effectively LLMs generalise. It's an incredible leap forward compared to five years ago.

Re: Poker Tournament for LLMs

#56
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: If you put the currently best poker algorithm in a tournament with mixed-skill-level players, how likely is the algorithm to get into the money? Recognizing different skill levels quickly and altering your play for the opponent in the beginning grows the pot very fast. I would imagine that playing against good players is completely different game compared to mixed skill levels.

Agreed. I don't know how fast it would get into the money, but an equilibrium strategy is guaranteed to not lose, in expectation. So as long as the variance doesn't make it to run out of money, over the long run it should collect most of the money in the game. It would be fun to try!

> equilibrium strategy is guaranteed to not lose,

In my scenario and tournament play. Are you sure?

I would be shocked to learn that there is a Nash equilibrium in multi-player setting, or any kind of strategic stability.

Re: Poker Tournament for LLMs

#57

I have PhD in algorithmic game theory and worked on poker. 1) There are currently no algorithms that can compute deterministic equilibrium strategies [0]. Therefore, mixed (randomized) strategies must be used for professional-level play or stronger. 2) In practice, strong play has been achieved with: i) online search and ii) a mechanism to ensure strategy consistency. Without ii) an adaptive opponent can learn to exp…

I think you miss the point of this tournament, though. The goal isn't to make the strongest possible poker bot, merely to compare how good LLMs are relative to each other on a task which (on the level they play it) requires a little opponent modeling, a little reasoning, a little common sense, a little planning etc.

Re: Poker Tournament for LLMs

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I’d bet some coin that current CharGPT would provide a genuine pseudo-random number on request. It now has the ability to recognise when answering the prompt requires a standard algorithm instead of ordinary sentence generation. I found this out recently when I asked it to generate some anagrams for me. Then I asked how it did it.

In the context of gambling, random numbers or prngs can't have any unknown possible frequencies or tendencies. There can't be any doubt as to whether the number could be distorted or hallucinated. A pseudo random number that might or might not be from some algorithm picked by GPT is wayyyy worse than a mersenne twister, because it's open to distortion. Worse, there's no paper trail. MT is not the way to run a casino,…

I think you're missing the point. Current incarnations of GPT can do tool calling, why shouldn't they be able to call on a CSPRNG if they think they'll need a genuinely random number?

Re: Poker Tournament for LLMs

#60

I would love to see a live stream of this but they’re also allowed to talk to each other - bluff, trash talk. That would be a much more interesting test of LLMs and a pretty decent spectator sport.

I was expecting them to communicate as well, I thought that was the whole point.
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