Can AI Solve Poker?

[MrHachiman]

I recently saw a documentary in netflix: 'AlphaGo' where a group of programmers designed an artificial intelligence software capable of learning from itself by playing millions of games of this ancient Chinese game called Go. The program continues unbeatable to this day after beating twice world champions Lee SeeDol and Ke Jie, two true geniuses. This made me think, will the day come when a program can solve poker? It's hard to imagine, but, thinking about the end of a Heads-Up game where you only face a rival. Could the perfect strategy be created? Or being involved in chance and not just being a game of mental ability like go or chess so will never be solved?

 

[LevySystem]

Limit holdem is solved allready by ai. NLH is a different thing, allthough its close to being solved.

. You would need a huge computer tho

There are even bots around nowadays but they get banned rather quickly.


You dont need a perfect strategy to beat most people at lower stakes, you just need a bot that plays close to GTO. Alltough you as a human can exploit that.

 

[adriantempo]

Limit holdem is solved allready by ai. NLH is a different thing, allthough its close to being solved. AI Poker Bots Are Beating The World's Best Players (HBO) - YouTube . You would need a huge computer tho

There are even bots around nowadays but they get banned rather quickly.


You dont need a perfect strategy to beat most people at lower stakes, you just need a bot that plays close to GTO. Alltough you as a human can exploit that.

I recently saw a documentary in netflix: 'AlphaGo' where a group of programmers designed an artificial intelligence software capable of learning from itself by playing millions of games of this ancient Chinese game called Go. The program continues unbeatable to this day after beating twice world champions Lee SeeDol and Ke Jie, two true geniuses. This made me think, will the day come when a program can solve poker? It's hard to imagine, but, thinking about the end of a Heads-Up game where you only face a rival. Could the perfect strategy be created? Or being involved in chance and not just being a game of mental ability like go or chess so will never be solved?

Limit Hold'Em but also No limit Hold'Em has been "solved". It's called Libratus.
Read the CardsChat news here: https://www.cardschat.com/news/afte...ly-beating-humans-but-also-joining-them-57335

 

[Fordeverest]

Numerous programs will help the poker player.10 years later, it will not be a fun game.

 

[damgold]

programmers and poker

I think poker will never be solved sometimes you go out with KK bet everything on the button the villain pays in the small blind with JQ and appears J45 on the flop on the turn a 9 appears and on the river a Q appears and you with the best cards leave the tournament is a game that involves the mind but also has the luck and chance factor does anyone agree with what I said?

 

[thaysen13]

I think the pokerbots working already with that. I am a programmor and I think with algorithmw you can do a lot with that.

 

[Napkins420]

I think poker will never be solved sometimes you go out with KK bet everything on the button the villain pays in the small blind with JQ and appears J45 on the flop on the turn a 9 appears and on the river a Q appears and you with the best cards leave the tournament is a game that involves the mind but also has the luck and chance factor does anyone agree with what I said?

Beating poker doesn't mean winning every hand lol

 

[Sorin Iliescu]

i think the game will be solved eventually but until then, a lot of time will pass. If the bots will play GTO, then a human playing exploitative will beat them. So they will have to invent both an gto and exploitative style based on reads on human behaviour in the hand, which will eventually lead to a rock paper scissors battle, in which a cunning player could still win against the bot sometimes.

 

[shair]

I think poker will never be solved sometimes you go out with KK bet everything on the button the villain pays in the small blind with JQ and appears J45 on the flop on the turn a 9 appears and on the river a Q appears and you with the best cards leave the tournament is a game that involves the mind but also has the luck and chance factor does anyone agree with what I said?

what is solv for poker, it is a playing in plus for a bot = it means some strategy = go play in many hands, not 1 time
it doesn't mean every hand be winning.


You wrote about luck.Yes luck allways be in poker, but in many hands strategy will win.

 

[MrHachiman]

I have not found much information about Libratus on the internet, more than that test that gave in front of 4 professional players who won last year. It would be interesting to see it against more renowned players.

 

[Lorpugo]

heads up is solved, but you need supercomputer, more than 2 people and it is unsolvable for ever

 

[vitalicharniak]

People think that bluff is typical for people, but it is not. The computer can understand that if you bluff, then the winnings can be more. "

 

[kraemer]

depends on your definition of "solved"...

Can a bot play an optimal strategy online based on math... YES!
Does this mean it is going to win... not necessarily!

Can an AI get a read of player on a live table? I don't think so.
At least not today and at least not with a system that could recover
its costs...

The main difference is that any game with imperfect information envolves luck...
Sometimes a human will make a laydown that would be mathematically incorrect,
but turns out to be a genius play in that situation.

I don't see that AI has come far enough to emulate that "feeling"...

Also a mathematical correct play could be discovered and exploited
by a good player.

I think there will be plenty of human wsop winners before we'll see
a computer winning a bracelett...

 

[purple714]

I don't think a program could be very effective in most cases as there are to many variables to consider.

 

[Clowntown]

AI can be very good at online/virtual poker but live poker obviously has different elements to it so it's not just about math and patterns.

 

[finaltable1]

neanderthals - homo rhodesiensis - homo sapiens - homo AIsiens - AI
good bye mr and mrs "homo"

 

[PHX]

Full ring game it probably can. It can perfect the strategy and play optimal. It will have trouble with the ends of the spectrum ie the really aggressive players and the rock solid players.

Heads up a bot may struggle against any descent headsup player.

 

[Mateo]

Id just like to clarify what solved means in this case. Consider a game of noughts and crosses. It is a game that is solved - that is that if you play the optimal moves you will always win or draw. In poker this is a bit different - there is a luck factor so that even with the most optimal play you can lose in the long run. It's important to note that this optimal play will result statistically in the long run in a positive expected value. If playing against another optimal player there is neutral expected value (assuming no rake). Thus it is possible to beat a bot playing a solved strategy, but only through luck or perfect play and slight luck

 

[gabethegimp]

You can constrain an AI to completely ignore any "personal traits" of players and strictly focus on the underlying math of the game and that over time will out earn most, if not all human players. Just look at the earning rates of well tuned low limit bots on acr - that's not even AI, it's just a conditional algorithm. If this percentage is greater than this, and this is lower then that with these odds, three handed in position then 3-bet x amount.

You can customize Neural Networks, train them with a constant supply of poker hands out there online and just let it learn for a few weeks. It'll change gears, read peoples habits and probably out play most players too. If we're talking live players in "person," then you can easily get nora-esk type software and link it in then just continue training it with video footage and data. It'll murder people - hopefully just figuratively...

The only flaw of AI right now is in its design - If the people that programmed it screwed up in even a small way, that flaw can propogate to the point where the bot is rendered worthless. So, yet again, the cap of any AI is human intelligence.

Watch this space though lol.

*removes tin foil hat*

 

[neptun1914]

Interesting discussion. I think that it is not so hard to make bot which follows a strategy known to work correctly and even try to learn and adapt while playing. If you start playing online with such bot it should earn money without problem in a long run but definitely will not win every time due to the big amount of players with many different styles and also the involved element of luck. If you somehow introduce this bot to the final table of WSOP - well i am rather skeptical that it will win the title. Anyway poker is great because it is played by people and during online play poker rooms do their best to prevent usage of bots and i think that it will and should stay this way.

 

[vitalii029]

I will definitely watch this movie but it seems to me that online poker still depends a lot on luck

 

[louaylouay]

i think the game will be solved eventually but until then, a lot of time will pass. If the bots will play GTO, then a human playing exploitative will beat them. So they will have to invent both an gto and exploitative style based on reads on human behaviour in the hand, which will eventually lead to a rock paper scissors battle, in which a cunning player could still win against the bot sometimes.

THIS

Poker isn't a straight line in terms of best strategy. The correct strategy is a function of your opponent's strategy. A bot would need to play way way way too many hands with each person individually to really nail down their playstyle and be able to exploit it. Bots can only work with YES and NO. 1 and 0. Its Binary. Thats the reason why it will not be able to completely dominate the game. Poker is not a YES NO game, there are too many variables to be considered, and sometimes the best decision counteracts what the variables tell you even if you can answer them all truthfully and correctly. Combine this with the fact that most tables will be 6-9 players, and a bot has as good of a chance as just about anyone abiding by a chart. It will play better than a lot of people, but definitely not break the game.