(Michael Stetz, San Diego Union-Tribune) Using a computer to beat chess masters is so 1997. Today, programmers are gunning for the world’s best Texas Hold ‘em players.
Forget Deep Blue’s mastery of bishops, queens and knights. Think pocket aces, open-ended straight draws, the flop all calculated by increasingly popular poker bots.
Last month, for the first time, a computer program beat top online poker players in a contest called Man vs. Machine.About that time, a Texas Hold ‘em program created by a Hillcrest resident finished in a three-way tie for second place in an annual contest that pits artificial intelligence poker programs against each other. The program is called Fell Omen 2 and its play has no weaknesses, said creator Ian Fellows, a researcher and statistician with the UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry, who developed the program in his spare time.
Far from the Texas Hold ‘em video games you find in stores, these artificial intelligence creations can figure out the many angles and odds of the game and make bets and decisions accordingly. They even bluff.
