Very recently a new poker-playing artificial intelligence machine has been developed that is believed to be more adaptive to poker than humans. This new machine, "Polaris 2.0" is believed to soon surpass humans in the game of poker, and it was recently tested in Las Vegas against numerous poker pros.
Polaris played four rounds of Texas Hold 'Em against two separate teams, and Polaris proceeded to win 2 of the rounds, drawing and losing the other two. However this was after Polaris 1.0 was first released to play in public prior to this years new release. Humans ended up defeating Polaris 1.0, 3 out of 4 matches, but the release of 2.0 took everyone for a new ride.
Polaris was first developed for chess, and after beating chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997, the research team moved onto developing a poker strategy. This new Polaris, "Polaris 2.0" soon became very famous around the University of Alberta. The major new innovations of this new Polaris were its ability to not allow humans to exploit any weaknesses found within the machine. And not to mention, the machine could learn from past experiences.
This means that the machine can identify the strategy that each individual poker player would use, then quickly switch its own strategy to counteract the opponents. The poker pros at the match said they have not seen a human do this before: switch strategies to counteract the opponent so efficiently.
Although Polaris 2.0 did beat the human teams 3 out of the 4 matches that took place in Las Vegas, many poker pros are still skeptic of the robots ability to play against higher ranking pros. One pro is quoted saying, "Over the next year or so there are going to have to be several rematches before everyone is convinced that humans have been surpassed by machines in poker."
Researches are also hoping to develop a new system to enable Polaris to play on a wider range of games, besides the sole Heads-up Texas Hold 'Em version it is now capable of. The researches are hoping to develop new algorithm systems that will allow the robot to be used in a variety of different aspects of technology, far away from poker.
So the real question is will these new robots truly be more adaptable to poker than humans by remembering literally every hand played and adapting? And if so, how will this affect the online poker world in the near future?
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
My Latest Trip to TS
We returned yesterday from our trip to Turning Stone, and it was a blast. I had the chance to do everything that I wished to. The food was great, the poker turned out to be so-so for me, but great for others, and the golf was amazing. Without a doubt the highlight of my trip was the amazing golf course and the relaxing that came with it.
The main reason for going was obviously the poker, and for this particular trip, the Heartland Poker Tour was at Turning Stone and brought a large amount of players to the casino. One of my friends was staked in each of the tournaments that Heartland hosted but failed to cash in any. Another of my friends did well on the cash tables and left up around $400 solely from cash games. And the last member of our group ended placing 6th in the $220 deep stack turbo tournament that Heartland hosted for just over $2000. He had a very profittable trip leaving with over $3000 after coming with only a few hundred dollars.
My poker play ended fairly quickly, the third day or so. I was running terribly on the cash tables as I tended to get my money good on large pots and then proceeded to be drawn out in the three major pots I was in. The first of which was with pocket fives; I called a normal preflop raise of around $12 along with around 3 other callers including the raiser. The flop came 3 5 7, two diamonds. I was first to act and checked, the raiser C-bet the flop for about $30 and I raised all in after one behind me called the $30 for an additional $65 or $70. The initial raiser called the extra $70 with AK of diamonds, a flush draw, with the 9 of diamonds obviously coming on the river without pairing the board.
Another hand with AA left me with a loss of a $400 pot against a woman with KQ who called my reraise preflop to about $20 after she min-raised before me to $4. The flop came Q 4 2 and she lead out $40 on the flop, I raised all in for an additional $110 or so, she proceeded to call and the turn came a queen to end my poker playing trip. I decided then that I would rather do other things this trip than play poker.
The golf was amazing, we played the Shenendoah course for around $120 per round. The $120 included a cart for the 18 holes along with the top of the line rental clubs, all Titleist. I ended up parring 8 out of the 18 holes which I was happy with, but missed a great eagle opportunity on a par 4 after driving the green. That golf session was worth the entire trip to Turning Stone as I'm sure that will be one of the finest courses I will ever play.
Along with the golf the food was very good, we tended to order room service far too often and should have gone to more restaurants, but it was very good anyway. Rodizios was everything it has been in the past, but next time I expect to visit the steakhouse and Asian restaurant we planned on eating at this trip.
The main reason for going was obviously the poker, and for this particular trip, the Heartland Poker Tour was at Turning Stone and brought a large amount of players to the casino. One of my friends was staked in each of the tournaments that Heartland hosted but failed to cash in any. Another of my friends did well on the cash tables and left up around $400 solely from cash games. And the last member of our group ended placing 6th in the $220 deep stack turbo tournament that Heartland hosted for just over $2000. He had a very profittable trip leaving with over $3000 after coming with only a few hundred dollars.
My poker play ended fairly quickly, the third day or so. I was running terribly on the cash tables as I tended to get my money good on large pots and then proceeded to be drawn out in the three major pots I was in. The first of which was with pocket fives; I called a normal preflop raise of around $12 along with around 3 other callers including the raiser. The flop came 3 5 7, two diamonds. I was first to act and checked, the raiser C-bet the flop for about $30 and I raised all in after one behind me called the $30 for an additional $65 or $70. The initial raiser called the extra $70 with AK of diamonds, a flush draw, with the 9 of diamonds obviously coming on the river without pairing the board.
Another hand with AA left me with a loss of a $400 pot against a woman with KQ who called my reraise preflop to about $20 after she min-raised before me to $4. The flop came Q 4 2 and she lead out $40 on the flop, I raised all in for an additional $110 or so, she proceeded to call and the turn came a queen to end my poker playing trip. I decided then that I would rather do other things this trip than play poker.
The golf was amazing, we played the Shenendoah course for around $120 per round. The $120 included a cart for the 18 holes along with the top of the line rental clubs, all Titleist. I ended up parring 8 out of the 18 holes which I was happy with, but missed a great eagle opportunity on a par 4 after driving the green. That golf session was worth the entire trip to Turning Stone as I'm sure that will be one of the finest courses I will ever play.
Along with the golf the food was very good, we tended to order room service far too often and should have gone to more restaurants, but it was very good anyway. Rodizios was everything it has been in the past, but next time I expect to visit the steakhouse and Asian restaurant we planned on eating at this trip.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)