New Scientist has an article about some researchers that have created a bot that has learned to bluff in a game called lerpa (here’s a link to the detailed theory behind the experiment and how lerpa is played). Since most bots can’t bluff effectively this is a major advancement.
Now, I’m not a fan of people using bots but the reason I pointed out this article is because of one of the quotes from Clément Sire, a physicist at the CNRS (the French national research organisation).
“Given the current state of poker bots, if you are losing to them you should be ashamed,”
And that’s pretty much been my thinking when people complain too much about bots. Yes, bots are bad for the game and I think the people who develop and use them are unethical but they’re built so poorly that if you can’t beat them then you’re a really, really poor player.
In fact, several of the more recent bot scandals are basically affiliates who launch a bot ring so they can make the money on the rake the bots generate. The bots simply need to be breakeven or lose less than the affiliate MGR percentage for them to be profitable.
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Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.
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I read the original article and, as an academic computer scientist with an interest in both games and AI, have to say that I found it distinctly underwhelming.
The abstract and introduction make much of the “bluffing” aspect, but actual discussion of bluffing is restricted to a short section at the end. Even there, the example given is faintly ludicrous. The hand which is bluffed out of playing is so strong that it would be ridiculous to fold (it would be rather like laying down kings preflop in the BB after a late position raise).
Aside from that, the paper has a lot of other structural problems. No panic from that front I think. I’m afraid that in my opinion, this paper is itself a pretty good example of a bluff.