From July 3-6, the university's poker team will be pitting Polaris against a number of opponents, including Stoxpoker.com coaches Nick Grudzien and IJay Palansky, as well as contributor Matt Hawrilenko, all of whom can boast well over $1 million USD in lifetime winnings. This year's showdown will be at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. This match runs concurrently with the 2008 World Series of Poker as part of the 2008 Gaming Life Expo.
This type of tournament was first held in July of 2007, where Phil "The Unabomber" Laak and Ali Eslami won two matches, drew one match, and lost one match. In the same format as last year, Polaris will play against professional human players in a game of limit Texas Hold'em poker.
Each match will consist of 500 hands with the cards dealt in duplicate, meaning that Polaris will receive the same cards in one room that the professional receives in the other room and vise-versa. The duplicate system will be employed in order to balance out the luck of the cards and emphasize the capabilities of the participants.
"It's possible, given enough computing power, for computers to play 'perfectly,' where over a long enough match, the program cannot lose money," said associate professor Michael Bowling, leader of the university's computer poker research group. "Humans will always make some mistakes, meaning the program will have an advantage.
"We're still quite far from the necessary computing power for perfect play. However, we've been able to take what we learned last year and apply it to improving this year's program."
With the popularity of poker and the entertainment value of a man versus machine battle, it is easy to forget that this competition is an academic pursuit. Games are an excellent domain for artificial intelligence research because games have well defined rules and clear goals. The techniques that are learned from succeeding at games can be applied to real-world problems where the "rules" are not so well defined.
The department of computing science at the University of Alberta is one of the foremost institutions in the world to study artificial intelligence. The university's computer poker research group consists of 15 researchers and graduate and undergraduate students whose primary focus is artificial intelligence.
The University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group:
http://poker.cs.ualberta.ca/
Source: University of Alberta
Related stories:
Artificial intelligence takes home the pot at the poker table
Last weekend, the best man at the table was a machine. Polaris, the University of Alberta poker playing computer program, took on professional players in Las Vegas and came out on top. Like last year's challenge, when the program was edged out in the final match, the final result came down to the wire.
Stage set for a rematch as Polaris falls to poker professionals
It came down to the eleventh hour, but the humans finally prevailed in the $50,000, man-versus-machine poker playoff.
Poker program goes full-tilt this weekend
Poker professionals Phil "The Unabomber" Laak and Ali Eslami might have some trouble honing in on a tell from their latest opponent - Polaris.
Computer Program Can't Lose at Checkers
Game over. Computer scientists at the University of Alberta have solved checkers, the popular board game with a history that dates back to 3,000 B.C.
Poker match pits man vs. machine in world first match
A poker-playing computer program developed at the University of Alberta will battle against a pair of poker kings in a $50,000 contest this summer.
University of Alberta program wins computer poker championship
The World Series of Poker wraps up later this week in Las Vegas, but a team of researchers from the University of Alberta has already won the de facto world poker championship for computers at the American Association of Artificial Intelligence. The event was held recently in Boston, Massachusetts.
Computer Poker Program Knows When to Hold 'Em
(PhysOrg.com) -- Texas Hold'em poker has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Its popularity has extended to academic researchers, who are intrigued by the challenges of probabilities and decision-making in the face of uncertainty that players confront when playing the game. Now, poker-playing artificial intelligence systems, developed by a researcher at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have been released for free use by the public.
Can horror make you happy?
Eduardo Andrade of the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business wondered why his wife loves scary movies that make him squirm.
