By Robert S. Boyd | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Human pride took a hit 11 years ago when IBM's Big Blue computer beat world chess champion Gary Kasparov. Now it's poker players' turn to be humiliated by a machine.
A computer system called Polaris outperformed some of the world's top players last weekend at a human-vs.-machine competition in Las Vegas.
The score was computer 3, humans 2, with one draw.
BIg Blue was programmed specifically to beat Gary Kasparov. They loaded every recorded game of his into the machine the second time around. If it was just programmed to play exceptionally like ...was it Deep Blue? (the first match) Gary would have taken that ragged sack of processors down for the second time. As far as computers go they can do well and maintain but Phil Laak and other guys beat them all the time as well. Regardless in poker if no mistakes are made theoretically money would just shift around the table. Poker is a game won and lost on mistakes, human mistakes and someone (<--key word there) human capitalizes on those mistakes to win. Computers playing each other would probably not be that fun to watch and honestly I believe poker is a humans game. I know that sounds silly but would you walk into a casino and play a computer for money, not being a pro, for no publicity, for no endorsement? The smart money is on the machine and if it is a computer in a casino i am sure the house has (or would have an edge) that is gambling and there is no skill in gambling imo. Oh and Gary Kasparov is the man!
Good post Chuck
Lol thanks glad you enjoyed my novella!
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