5 ms·

I would expect this to be true of any probability-based game, particularly where: 1) the distinct human advantage of unquantifiable sensory perception is taken

I would expect this to be true of any probability-based game, particularly where: 1) the distinct human advantage of unquantifiable sensory perception is taken away (i.e., a person can't "read" a computer's body language to make his probabilistic estimations more accurate), thus reducing the game to a number-crunching contest. We haven't been winning those contests since the 40s. 2) enough time is injected into the experiment.

dangoldin 18y ago
Well the fact that the machine is using probability and is playing rationally can be used by opposing player.
gizmo 18y ago
You have clearly never played poker. Suppose the PC has 2 aces. It knows it has the best hand (worst cast: tie against the last two aces), so it wants to put all the money in. However, the human will just fold because the computer is so predictable. Result: the PC essentially wastes his big hands because of the predictable behavior. So the computer has to start bluffing, and semibluffing, just like humans. However, with every bluff you make you're wasting money (as bluffs are by definition sub-optimal play). So you have to estimate how much you gain in the future by making that bluff. But if the PC uses simple heuristics then the human can once again get the upper hand. E.g. the human can make outrageous bluffs, knowing that the PC knows the bluffs are unprofitable and therefore unlikely. That way the PC will lose once again. Poker is not trivial - and people without any number crunching skills can win from the best number crunchers if they're predictable.
- aggieben 18y ago
  You have clearly never played poker. What is it with people that think this kind of quip buys some sort of credibility? This is the second time today that someone has started a response with "Clearly, you have never...". I have played poker. I have also baked (reference to other thread). Anyway, I don't buy what you're selling. It doesn't seem that it would be hard to make the computer be unpredictable, unless suddenly humans become good at figuring out the machinations of a pseudo-random number generator instinctively, and in real-time. Make the computer do irrational things at random intervals. The whole point is that a human player, not knowing what cards the computer has, will have little introspection into the computer's intended course of action. I suppose you could tell some things, depending on the rules of the game (i.e., if the computer traded 3 cards in a 5-card hand, you might assume he had a bad hand). Essentially, it seems that you just said "it's easy to beat the computer if it plays stupid". That doesn't have anything to do with this. The computer can be both a perfect number cruncher and entirely unpredictable, and given enough dealt hands, I don't see how you could beat it.
  - gizmo 18y ago
    The remark wasn't meant to establish my credibility, I was just saying you make elementary mistakes. My hunch is you have no experience playing poker. This doesn't necessarily make you wrong, but it doesn't exactly work in your advantage. Are you really saying that the computer doesn't need to use any psychology - and can become "world champion" just by playing a mathematically perfect game with some random bluffs thrown in? You've got to be kidding me. (Just for the record - I'm talking NL hold'em here. If you're talking about 5 card draw you have a point. As that game doesn't have the same opportunity for psychology)
    - aggieben 18y ago
      Well, if it's any comfort, your hunch is correct. I'm not very experienced. My observation, perhaps incorrect, is that poker outcomes are almost entirely based on psychological manipulation, not on probabilities - because people can be psychologically manipulated. In this regard, poker is like Risk. There's an element of probability, but it only rarely tends to dominate outcomes (I am an experienced Risk player). It's possible to write Risk-playing software that is very difficult to beat except in the rarest of circumstances where luck dominates, because you can't convince the computer to invade Asia or fortify in Australia when it would really be against his interests. I see poker in the same way. Perhaps I'm over-trivializing the difficulty of writing such a system for poker, but I suppose in essence, I am indeed arguing that you could create software that could just ignore the psychological aspects of the game, and instead play a total numbers game, and that over time it should be a winner. I guess I can concede that if you don't ignore the psychological aspects and try to use them in formulating strategy, that would be very difficult indeed; I just don't see the point.
      - gizmo 18y ago
        Thanks for explaining your argument. Let's suppose you're right - that playing by the numbers is sufficient. In this case you would not have to keep track of player histories, as you consider every hand without context. But this can only result in one thing: your play style will be constant. You will always take the best action with probability P and (semi)bluff with probability 1 - P. The human notices this and starts playing very aggressively. As a result the PC will fold winning hands and lose many blinds. What the PC should do is change tactics. Get aggressive or start laying traps (e.g. slowplay a great hand so it looks weak, to lure the aggressive human player into bluffing a lot of money). If the computer always plays optimally from hand to hand it cannot deduce changes in playing style and will therefore always lose. From this I can only conclude that psychological aspects can never be ignored in poker.
- cousin_it 18y ago
  The computer's strategy does not have to be deterministic - it can randomize. Moreover, even deterministic strategies aren't necessarily predictable. For example: bad hand - always bluff, moderate hand - always fold, good hand - always go ahead. This is actually a Nash equilibrium strategy for one of the simplified poker models. Within that model, no human player can repeatably win against this strategy, and yes, it's a provable mathematical fact that has nothing to do with psychology.
  - gizmo 18y ago
    If you have a link, I'd like to read it. I can't think of any Nash equilibrium where bluffing all bad hands works.
    - cousin_it 18y ago
      The Von Neumann poker model. See http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tom/papers/poker1.pdf http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tom/papers/poker1.pdf , pages 7-8, theorem 2. In a nutshell, it works because the opponent can't be sure if you have a very bad hand or a very good hand. Yes, it's a simplified model, but my game theory book says a computer analysis of straight poker gives the same result: when given the worst possible hand, you should always bluff.
      - mattmaroon 18y ago
        That might be optimal from a certain standpoint, but it's not optimal at all for exploiting another human's weaknesses. Your goal in poker isn't to break even or even to win, it's to win the most possible.
        schtog 18y ago
        Noone said it wasn't. Fact is a gametheoretically optimal player will beat all players than dont play gametheoretically optimal. So yes you are right that a perfectly playing bot might not beat a really weak player for as much as the best human players would but that is not the question here. The question is whether a bot can beat the best human players and if it plays GT-optimal and the human doesn't, well then the bot will win. And it doesn't matter if human players can still beat the weak players for more. If people find out they are playing against robots they will quit playing (well I'd assume they would). The goal of malicious bots wouldn't be to beat the highstakes-games but rather fishing out the small ponds. And then the pyramid falls and you will have to get a real job;)

dangoldin 18y ago

Well the fact that the machine is using probability and is playing rationally can be used by opposing player.

gizmo 18y ago

You have clearly never played poker. Suppose the PC has 2 aces. It knows it has the best hand (worst cast: tie against the last two aces), so it wants to put all the money in. However, the human will just fold because the computer is so predictable. Result: the PC essentially wastes his big hands because of the predictable behavior. So the computer has to start bluffing, and semibluffing, just like humans. However, with every bluff you make you're wasting money (as bluffs are by definition sub-optimal play). So you have to estimate how much you gain in the future by making that bluff. But if the PC uses simple heuristics then the human can once again get the upper hand. E.g. the human can make outrageous bluffs, knowing that the PC knows the bluffs are unprofitable and therefore unlikely. That way the PC will lose once again. Poker is not trivial - and people without any number crunching skills can win from the best number crunchers if they're predictable.

aggieben 18y ago
You have clearly never played poker. What is it with people that think this kind of quip buys some sort of credibility? This is the second time today that someone has started a response with "Clearly, you have never...". I have played poker. I have also baked (reference to other thread). Anyway, I don't buy what you're selling. It doesn't seem that it would be hard to make the computer be unpredictable, unless suddenly humans become good at figuring out the machinations of a pseudo-random number generator instinctively, and in real-time. Make the computer do irrational things at random intervals. The whole point is that a human player, not knowing what cards the computer has, will have little introspection into the computer's intended course of action. I suppose you could tell some things, depending on the rules of the game (i.e., if the computer traded 3 cards in a 5-card hand, you might assume he had a bad hand). Essentially, it seems that you just said "it's easy to beat the computer if it plays stupid". That doesn't have anything to do with this. The computer can be both a perfect number cruncher and entirely unpredictable, and given enough dealt hands, I don't see how you could beat it.
- gizmo 18y ago
  The remark wasn't meant to establish my credibility, I was just saying you make elementary mistakes. My hunch is you have no experience playing poker. This doesn't necessarily make you wrong, but it doesn't exactly work in your advantage. Are you really saying that the computer doesn't need to use any psychology - and can become "world champion" just by playing a mathematically perfect game with some random bluffs thrown in? You've got to be kidding me. (Just for the record - I'm talking NL hold'em here. If you're talking about 5 card draw you have a point. As that game doesn't have the same opportunity for psychology)
  - aggieben 18y ago
    Well, if it's any comfort, your hunch is correct. I'm not very experienced. My observation, perhaps incorrect, is that poker outcomes are almost entirely based on psychological manipulation, not on probabilities - because people can be psychologically manipulated. In this regard, poker is like Risk. There's an element of probability, but it only rarely tends to dominate outcomes (I am an experienced Risk player). It's possible to write Risk-playing software that is very difficult to beat except in the rarest of circumstances where luck dominates, because you can't convince the computer to invade Asia or fortify in Australia when it would really be against his interests. I see poker in the same way. Perhaps I'm over-trivializing the difficulty of writing such a system for poker, but I suppose in essence, I am indeed arguing that you could create software that could just ignore the psychological aspects of the game, and instead play a total numbers game, and that over time it should be a winner. I guess I can concede that if you don't ignore the psychological aspects and try to use them in formulating strategy, that would be very difficult indeed; I just don't see the point.
    - gizmo 18y ago
      Thanks for explaining your argument. Let's suppose you're right - that playing by the numbers is sufficient. In this case you would not have to keep track of player histories, as you consider every hand without context. But this can only result in one thing: your play style will be constant. You will always take the best action with probability P and (semi)bluff with probability 1 - P. The human notices this and starts playing very aggressively. As a result the PC will fold winning hands and lose many blinds. What the PC should do is change tactics. Get aggressive or start laying traps (e.g. slowplay a great hand so it looks weak, to lure the aggressive human player into bluffing a lot of money). If the computer always plays optimally from hand to hand it cannot deduce changes in playing style and will therefore always lose. From this I can only conclude that psychological aspects can never be ignored in poker.
cousin_it 18y ago
The computer's strategy does not have to be deterministic - it can randomize. Moreover, even deterministic strategies aren't necessarily predictable. For example: bad hand - always bluff, moderate hand - always fold, good hand - always go ahead. This is actually a Nash equilibrium strategy for one of the simplified poker models. Within that model, no human player can repeatably win against this strategy, and yes, it's a provable mathematical fact that has nothing to do with psychology.
- gizmo 18y ago
  If you have a link, I'd like to read it. I can't think of any Nash equilibrium where bluffing all bad hands works.
  - cousin_it 18y ago
    The Von Neumann poker model. See http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tom/papers/poker1.pdf http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tom/papers/poker1.pdf , pages 7-8, theorem 2. In a nutshell, it works because the opponent can't be sure if you have a very bad hand or a very good hand. Yes, it's a simplified model, but my game theory book says a computer analysis of straight poker gives the same result: when given the worst possible hand, you should always bluff.
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      That might be optimal from a certain standpoint, but it's not optimal at all for exploiting another human's weaknesses. Your goal in poker isn't to break even or even to win, it's to win the most possible.
      - schtog 18y ago
        Noone said it wasn't. Fact is a gametheoretically optimal player will beat all players than dont play gametheoretically optimal. So yes you are right that a perfectly playing bot might not beat a really weak player for as much as the best human players would but that is not the question here. The question is whether a bot can beat the best human players and if it plays GT-optimal and the human doesn't, well then the bot will win. And it doesn't matter if human players can still beat the weak players for more. If people find out they are playing against robots they will quit playing (well I'd assume they would). The goal of malicious bots wouldn't be to beat the highstakes-games but rather fishing out the small ponds. And then the pyramid falls and you will have to get a real job;)