Chinahand Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Where next for Online Poker? Link 1, Link 2. I really wonder if the news that a computer can now be programmed to play poker basically flawlessly will affect online gaming. I am pretty sure the results of this will be quickly cloned and as a result any player in an online game will never know if their opponent is another person looking for a game of skill or someone using a machine with a perfect strategy. Maybe it'll do nothing - people still happily bet on virtual horse races with artificial horses which always come in at 10 to 1 or whatever. They clearly don't understand the maths of betting and just hope to ride the volatility of chance, even when it is mathematically guaranteed over the long run they will lose. Poker etc was seen as different - a game of skill; but now brilliant maths and huge computing power has refuted that. When playing a suitably programmed computer your skill will become irrelevant and you will be back to a mug's numbers game. And you will never know if the person on the other end of the screen is using the algorithms to defeat you or not. People only play tournament chess when they know the person they are playing is just using their brain, it becomes pointless if the other side is using a chess computer to play for them. I reckon it will be the same with poker - the online game will soon be just a mug's game. But will that make a noticeable difference to the business, or will the punters still just come. Ah there is no accounting for the irrationality of people! Or so the world's (and the Island's) gaming companies hope. Edited for typos etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guzzi Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 I think online gaming companies would be crazy to use these algorithms, or at least to use them in raw form. They have to keep people coming back, and to do that, they have to win sometimes. Also, aren't a lot of the games player/player rather than player/computer? I think it would be indefensible to conceal a computer algorithm behind a human persona. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Sausages Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Player vs player is exactly the problem. How do you know the player you're against isn't using such an algorithm rather than their own skill? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slim Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 And you will never know if the person on the other end of the screen is using the algorithms to defeat you or not. This isn't a new issue, commercial bots have been plaguing online poker since it appeared, their ability to quickly calculate the odds, player history and play multiple hands very quickly indeed means they can be very lucrative. The poker companies have been running an arms race with the bot suppliers, both through making their clients hard to automate and by putting in detection for the ways bots play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guzzi Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Player vs player is exactly the problem. How do you know the player you're against isn't using such an algorithm rather than their own skill? Doh! Yes, agreed, that is a definite problem, and quite likely to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tugger Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 I've never really understood how a human could beat a computer at poker at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeliX Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 As Slim says, this isn't new. And it's the same battle as virus vs anti-virus, and cheating in video games vs anti-cheat in video games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbie Bobster Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 As our local poker firm - if I understand their business model correctly - just take a transaction fee, they should be largely ambivalent to this issue, as long as the transaction volume/popularity is maintained? Ignoring the boundary case where bots kill the whole market, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeliX Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 As our local poker firm - if I understand their business model correctly - just take a transaction fee, they should be largely ambivalent to this issue, as long as the transaction volume/popularity is maintained? Ignoring the boundary case where bots kill the whole market, of course. Online gambling firms live and die on their reputation. There's so many to choose from that they really do have to fear the sort of mass exodus that would occur if there were consistent reports of obvious botting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the stinking enigma Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 i think this only applies to fixed limit hold em...you still have a chance against a computer/bot at no limit hold em due to the added scope for human creativity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
im_new_to_this Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 There is considerable text relating to associated bot usage with the egaming licence agreements so I doubt very much that the companies would use this type of system to ensure the house rakes more than it would without it. As another user mentioned reputation is everything and bad news travels fast on the big money players forums who are always looking for the best deal. However I agree that it would be difficult to work out if a normal user was using programmes to assist their game to perfection. I imagine a fairly simple flagging system would be able to put sanctions on accounts pretty quickly if their play suddenly went through the roof just like customers are "cut" on their odds when they get a bit too good / lucky at betting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrighty Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Heads-up, fixed limit Texas Holdem is a very simplified version of the game - I don't think this announcement will affect online poker at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bees Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 Similar but not the same ... My old pc (my mums Time pc) had a chess game on which would not lose, if I was set for a win it would say "Thinking" and then spend a day or so thinking about its next move. I presumed all online gambling was artificial intelligence vs the player. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted March 9, 2016 Author Share Posted March 9, 2016 Artificial Intelligence researchers are all abuzz at the moment about a neural network which has learnt to play the ancient Chinese game of 围棋 most commonly known by its Japanese name as Go. The computer beat the European Champion a month or so ago and is currently playing a best of 5 series of matches against the world champion. The computer has just won the first match. I think there are 361! possible games - which is 10^768, billions upon billions upon billions more than protons, neutrons and electrons in the universe. Here says there are 2x10^170 legal moves on a 19x19 board - again an unimaginably large number. Neural networks are rapidly advancing - the fascinating thing is we have no idea how they perform better than us. There is no code to examine, just the weights in the network which are basically impossible to reverse engineer. Computers are becoming better than us, and we have no idea why or how to learn from their superior performance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhumsaa Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 I believe it achieved it 10 years ahead of their estimates and the people who created are not 100% sure how I was listening to a podcast discussing it last week. Interesting stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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