If you just want to take a shot at this bot, here's a free skeleton of a gto strategy. Keep in mind, this is gambling, you're not going to win every hand, in fact about a third of the hands are easily the bots and about a third are easily yours, the contested ground is the middle third and your goal is to get more than half of the contested third. On the button you have position after the flop, so you fold about the bottom 20%, to give credibility to the top 80% which you're going to play in full Stu Ungar, 98 pounds wet, coke fiend maniac mode. Keep in mind, this is limit poker, it's four raises max, you're not going to be shoving the houses, cars, boats, spouses, concubines, and kids on this game, it won't allow you to do that. But you should raise and reraise till it won't let you anymore, consider that the machine's first mistake, that it limits the amount of raising you can do. And after the flop you should do the same, just ignore the cards, at this point they don't mean anything. Now, if you get to the turn, where the betsize doubles, and the machine still has the virtual cojones to put out a bet, you need to do some serious second thinking. Unless you have some showdown equity, like a pair or flush or straight draw or overcards or better, you should probably just fold. And the showdown equity probably rates just a call, the bot is telling you that at this point you don't have much fold equity, if any at all. The whole point of playing like Stu Unger was to get the machine to fold, and it's trying to tell you that it doesn't want to fold the current hand it's holding, so drop the attitude fast and get very afraid, get very very afraid. Of course, don't overreact, if you happen to have the nuts or a nut draw you can have a little fun with the machine.
Now, if you don't have the button, you're out of position after the flop, you need to be Elmer J Fudd timid (weah huntin wabbits, maybe, huh, huh, huh, please don't hit me?) to counter the likely aggression of the button. Just call preflop, and if you hit anything on the flop, like any pair, overcards, flush or straight draw or better, you should probably also just call, otherwise fold. Resist the urge to raise, you need credibility for your weak holdings out of position, so just call. Now, on the turn, it gets interesting. Obviously, if you have nothing, you're just going to check and fold, mostly, the button has position, he's entitled to win pots it seems like he shouldn't, that's the positional advantage. Otherwise, you could check and raise and see what happens, or lead out donk bet and see what happens. If the bot folds a lot to your turn lead outs, add some lead out bluffs. If the bot folds a lot to your turn check-raises, add some check-raise bluffs. Now the poker game really begins, is the button just bluffing or does it have something? Will it fold and what will it fold? If it's really going to showdown, can you beat it? How many showdown hands can you beat and how many beat you? These are things you need to think about. Take your time, there is no timeout clock on this game, gaming probably wouldn't allow it. Heck, ask the opinions of others around you, call a trusted friend, check your smartphone, whatever, you have lots of options. Enjoy.
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, <vpfree@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
So far the bots are losing, that's why you see the casinos reducing or removing comps and reducing the denominations and just plain eliminating the machines, to be reworked into slow information kiosks with anti-human attitudes. A lot of casinos won't even put these machines on the floor, they have a reputation of being easily beaten, especially the earlier models which had more leaks than the Costa Concordia.
best bot beating music: rage against the machine know your enemy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2K2hSB4fEU
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, <vpfree@yahoogroups.com> wrote:I saw and read this article when it first appeared in the online NYTimes. As a live poker player, although not a great one and not that strong at heads up poker or limit poker, I still found the article fascinating, since poker is a fairly complex game incorporating incomplete information and variations in strategy.By the former, I contrast poker with complex games with complete information, such as chess - or for that matter, such as video poker -- where you may not know what's coming next, but you know all the possibilities (in live poker, "all the possibilities" are too numerous to be useful, and players will therefore try to narrow the number of possible hands their opponent might have, as much as possible, based on their play of the particular hand so far, and to the extent that they have additional information, based on their play of similar hands in the past). By the latter, I mean that a skillful player therefore will not play the same way in the same situation every time, so that their actions hopefully do not provide any additional information to their opponent, since the more a player knows about their opponent's likely hand, the easier it is to play correctly (i.e., in strict accordance with the mathematics of the hand).Therefore, the application of game theory is important in "live" poker, as it would presumably continue to be when playing a machine. More specifically, a given hand in a given situation may reasonably lend itself to straightforward play or deceptive play, and therefore a choice between, for example, calling a bet or raising, or between, for example, checking, checking and calling, or checking and then raising any bet, as well as the introduction of bluffing in appropriate circumstances and with appropriate frequency, may be randomly decided based on a pre-determined frequency (e.g., bet 60% of the time, raise 40% of the time). Such variations among the player's options make it more difficult for opponents to utilize betting patterns to determine a player's likely hand.As I understood the article, the poker-slot had to be "dumbed down" not so much to make it interesting, as to comply with gaming regulations that prohibit a machine from changing its operation in response to a particular player's play; the article said:"Casino commissions, however, mandate that a gaming machine cannot change its playing style in response to particular opponents. A poker game must play a World Series of Poker champion the same way it does a neophyte, so Dahl's machine would not be able to learn from its experience in a casino."If this information is correct, it would prevent the machine from using all aspects of the artificial intelligence algorithms that were available to the developers. Of course, the quote says the machine can't change its playing style in response to particular opponents, which does NOT lead to the following remark, that it could not learn from its experience -- so the actual prohibitions on how the machine can operate are not readily discernible from this quote. But there are most certainly regulations that sometimes apply -- we are aware that Vegas-style video poker machines must deal the cards randomly from a 52-card deck, while other styles of machines ("bingo" style - and please excuse my likely incorrect use of the terminology here) are not "fair" in the same sense, in that they will provide winners and losers based on factors that do not arise from a "fair" deck of cards dealt randomly.If the poker machine were able to identify who it is playing against and utilize data on that player's style of play, it would have a tremendous advantage over the player -- most (all?) poker players have at least some, if not many, aspects of their game that are consistent and can be exploited, because they are unaware of that consistency - even if they try hard to eliminate that element from their game.If a machine could not identify who it was playing, it could not utilize player-specific data to improve its play against the human opponent.Those few who are winning against the machine have apparently found flaws in some aspect of the computer strategy, and the machine is not allowed to "improve" its play in recognition of those flaws as a cause of losing to the player. However, it is likely that two things will happen: future iterations of the machine, if it catches on, will have improved strategy -- and as we know, skillful players may be prohibited from playing the game, just as they are often barred from blackjack and advantage-play video pokerThe comment about the "denomination" of the machine is interesting, but I would speculate that, like some video poker machines, this one is multi-denominational too.Of course, the response of players is always educational :) I sent the article to a bunch of my fellow live poker players, with the caveat that only a handful of the best could beat the machine and they should avoid it if they see it. Responses ranged from "why would anyone want to play against a computer?" to "I can't wait to play one of these". The most intelligent response noted that the application of game theory might thwart the machine -- e.g., rotating more than one skillful player against the machine on a random basis as a team, with each player using his/her own best strategy / approach --- so that the machine would not be able to make any "intelligent" adjustments to the player's playing style --- however, it may be the case that the machine is not allowed to do this anyway; the rules of the "casino commissions" are not that clear in the article, despite the quotation above (and of course, the use of the term "casino commissions" probably reflects the gambling sophistication of the writer, unless the term was "dumbed down" from "gaming commissions" for public consumption).Like video poker, slot machines with an element of chance and an element of skill are particularly appealing to some gamblers (some of whom would not even classify themselves as "gamblers" when playing games with an element of skill, even though there is most definitely a significant element of chance involved).--BG=======================2a. Re: Fascinating new poker machine
Date: Wed Sep 11, 2013 1:13 pm ((PDT))
check this out:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=39069549&postcou\
nt=215
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, <vpfree@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Article says: "So far, over the course of 500 hours, he says, he
averages about $135 per hour in profits, playing at the $20- or
$40-bet level."
Translation?: $135/hr at 20-40 limit (=$10 denomination machine,
=6.75BB/hr)
Why?
The article tells you they had to dumb the bot down in order to
get any interest. But maybe that's just an excuse, maybe their
technique for making a bot is not so hot. Sure it bluffs and can
fold at the river at a reasonable frequency now, but is that all
there is to winning poker?
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, <vpfree@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Last paragraph of the article sums it up when writer is in Vegas
and catches up with Chan:
"...I asked him if he thought anyone could win big over the long
haul, beyond what Mike Reed has managed to grind out.
“Nothing is impossible,� Chan said. Then he added
that some people see Texas Hold ‘Em Heads Up Poker as a
potential gold mine. “You probably have five groups out
there right now, testing the machine, writing down all the
results, getting every play blow by blow and figuring out what to
do on every hand. One hundred percent, I’m sure there are
teams working on it...�
HAL2000 is on the way.
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, <vpfree@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/magazine/poker-computer.html?_r\
=0
New format of posting is extremely difficult. Did this using
reply to another message.
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