This is for limit hold ‘em, which is a much more mathematical game than no-limit hold 'em. 'Limit’ refers to the fact that the bet is always a fixed amount, making there only a small number of distinct actions at each point, and the ability to bluff drastically reduced.
I’ve played a lot of casino and online poker, no one plays limit because it’s boring and unchallenging, and it ‘feels’ like a game in which a robot would win every time.
No-limit means that any time you can bet, you can bet any amount up to all the money you have on the table, and allowing a much larger range of expressiveness in your play due to the ‘analogue’ nature of the amount you can bet and therefore bluff. It enables psychological plays that are impossible in limit.
My understanding, from reading other articles about the paper in Science, is that for this one variety of Poker (Heads up limit Hold ‘Em), the computer plays so close to perfect that it’s essentially solved.
That was my first thought too, but having read a little deeper into this story yesterday, given the team’s track record of solving checkers a few years ago, in this case I think it’s substantive. For this particular variant of the game.
This is for limit hold ‘em, which is a much more mathematical game than no-limit hold 'em. 'Limit’ refers to the fact that the bet is always a fixed amount, making there only a small number of distinct actions at each point, and the ability to bluff drastically reduced.
I’ve played a lot of casino and online poker, no one plays limit because it’s boring and unchallenging, and it ‘feels’ like a game in which a robot would win every time.
No-limit means that any time you can bet, you can bet any amount up to all the money you have on the table, and allowing a much larger range of expressiveness in your play due to the ‘analogue’ nature of the amount you can bet and therefore bluff. It enables psychological plays that are impossible in limit.
The short-and-to-the-point answer is: no.
My understanding, from reading other articles about the paper in Science, is that for this one variety of Poker (Heads up limit Hold ‘Em), the computer plays so close to perfect that it’s essentially solved.
This article, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/game-theorists-crack-poker/?mobileFormat=true, had a little more detail about how they did it.
Betteridge’s law of headlines
That was my first thought too, but having read a little deeper into this story yesterday, given the team’s track record of solving checkers a few years ago, in this case I think it’s substantive. For this particular variant of the game.