In the battle of wits between humans and machines, computers have just upped the ante.
Two new poker-playing programs can best professionals at heads-up no-limit Texas Hold’em, a two-player version of poker without restrictions on the size of bets. It’s another in a growing list of complex games, including chess, checkers (SN: 7/21/07, p. 36) and Go (SN: 12/24/16, p. 28), in which computers reign supreme.
Computer scientists from the University of Alberta in Canada report that their program, known as DeepStack, roundly defeated professional poker players, playing 3,000 hands against each. The program didn’t win every hand — sometimes the luck of the draw was against it. But after the results were tallied, DeepStack beat 10 out of 11 card sharks, the scientists report online March 2 in Science. (DeepStack also beat the 11th competitor, but that victory was not statistically significant.)