NO READING THAT POKER FACE
Computer ‘really smart’ but ends up behind after first day of poker match pitting man against machine
Professional poker player Douglas Polk of Las Vegas takes time to figure out his next play in the Brains vs. Artificial Intelligence event Friday at the Rivers Casino on the North Shore. Four professional poker players were to play 80,000 hands of poker against a computer named Claudico, which was developed at Carnegie Mellon University.
It was only Day 1 of an epic battle of man versus machine, but the humans believe they had a pretty good day Friday.
In what has been dubbed “Brains Vs. Artificial Intelligence,” for the next two weeks four of the world’s best Heads-Up, No-Limit, Texas Hold’em poker players are taking on a highly advanced computer program designed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University for their share of a $100,000 prize pot.
From 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day till May 7, with one day off for rest, they will play 80,000 hands of poker over that time in an effort by CMU’s researchers to prove for the first time that a computer can beat humans at this most complex version of poker.
After the first 150 hands played against each of the four human competitors, three of the four professional poker players — all flew into Pittsburgh on Thursday from places around the country — had slight leads against the computer, named Claudico.
“Humans came out of the gate strong!” Doug Polk, one of the professionals, said during a break after finishing his 150th hand.
Mr. Polk, widely acknowledged
as the best Heads-Up, NoLimit, Texas Hold’em player in the world, said he managed to build an early lead if only because he got a lot of “really good hands” — and he pointed out that over the 20,000 hands he will play, luck is diminished.
He said he was impressed by Claudico’s strategy, which was often nonconventional compared with human poker players.
“It did some really smart stuff,” he said.
In particular, Claudico fairly regularly bet “all-in” when it felt like it had a really good hand, something Mr. Polk said most human players are reluctant to do, even with a very good hand.
“Humans get emotional about going all-in,” he said. “The computer doesn’t. It just wants to win the most chips, which is what you should be doing.”
Another competitor, Dong Kyu Kim, was equally impressed.
“It plays pretty well. But it plays differently,” said Mr. Kim, who was the only player behind after 150 hands. Like Mr. Polk, Mr. Kim noticed right away that Claudico “was being very aggressive, trying to win the pot.”
Both competitors said they intend to update their strategies and review the day’s play at night to improve how they perform against Claudico — something Claudico itself will also do.
“At the end of the day, we’ll know much more about how it plays,” Mr. Kim said.
Tuomas Sandholm, the renowned CMU computer science professor who has overseen the evolution of Claudico — and its previous incarnations under different names — for the past 11 years, was pleased by the early play.
“It’s a little scary. These guys are really, really good,” he conceded. “But Claudico held its own.”
Both sides spent part of the morning good-naturedly bantering back and forth. The public is invited to watch the event live at Rivers Casino for free. To check out the daily progress and watch each competitor hand by hand, go to http://www.riverscasino.com/pittsburgh/ BrainsVsAI