Poker: Polaris
Schaeffer leads the computer poker research group at the University of Alberta, which has developed several strong computer programs for playing Texas hold 'em poker. The earliest and most general of these is Poki, which uses Monte Carlo simulation to choose actions during a game. More recently, the group has focused on the two-player (Heads-Up) variant, and has developed a series of programs that approximate Nash equilibrium strategies for the game. Several of these programs (such as Poki, SparBot and VexBot) are available in products such as Poker Academy from BioTools.
In July 2007, Schaeffer announced a competition between the group's newest program, Polaris, and two human professionals, Phil Laak and Ali Eslami. The competition was held at the 2007 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) conference, which also hosted an international competition between computer poker programs. Out of four matches against the human professionals, Polaris won one, tied one, and lost twice; overall, the humans won the competition by a small margin. In the computer competition, Polaris (playing under the name Hyperborean) won the Limit Hold'em event and came first in the No-Limit Hold'em event.
Read more about this topic: Jonathan Schaeffer
Famous quotes containing the word polaris:
“Where is the “unexplored land” but in our own untried enterprises? To an adventurous spirit any place—London, New York, Worcester, or his own yard—is “unexplored land,” to seek which Frémont and Kane travel so far. To a sluggish and defeated spirit even the Great Basin and the Polaris are trivial places.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)