Why a Man-Machine Match?

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Why a Man-Machine Match?
University of Alberta Computer Poker Research
Group
Why are you playing Phil Laak and Ali
Eslami? Phil and Ali have proven themselves to be
top-notch expert players both compete in world
championships and have the winnings to prove it.
Furthermore, both come from technical backgrounds
and know the mathematics of the game. Working
together, we feel that they will be our toughest
possible competition. Eventually, we want to beat
all human players. Playing Phil and Ali is an
important first step.
Why play against humans? At the 2006 and 2007
AAAI conferences, weve had competitions between
the worlds best Poker programs. We know that
Poker bots are good but how good are they?
Could they beat a human expert? History

• Why do research on poker?
• Poker has several features that are not present
  in other games studied by artificial intelligence
  researchers
• Stochastic outcomes. Each new card can have a
  large effect on the game. A strong player must
  be able to manage the risks they take. Because
  there are so many possible outcomes, the state
  space is large, and abstraction must be used.
• Hidden information. In other games, the full
  state can be observed from looking at the board.
  In Poker, the opponent has hidden information.
  Players must be able to estimate the strength of
  the opponents hand from their actions and past
  observations.
• Exploitation is important. In Chess, Checkers
  and other games, it only matters if you win not
  how much you win by. In Poker, the goal is to
  win as much as possible on each hand. Opponent
  modeling allows you to find your opponents
  weaknesses and exploit them. A near-equilibrium
  strategy is difficult to defeat, but cannot
  exploit their opponent.