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Computer Poker Research Group

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Recent News      

  • [December 2008] The December 2008 issue of WIRED magazine has a story about Polaris' 2008 match against the Stoxpoker pros, told in comic book format: Ante Up, Human: The Adventures of Polaris, the Poker-Playing Robot

  • [September 2008] With the summer competitions finished, the CPRG has been writing papers to present the research that created Polaris. The most recent paper, "Strategy Evaluation in Extensive Games with Importance Sampling" was presented at the ICML 2008 conference in Helsinki, Finland the day after Polaris' victory at the Second Man-Machine Poker Championship. This and two other recent papers related to Polaris, "Regret Minimization in Games with Incomplete Information" and "Computing Robust Counter-Strategies", have also been added to the Publications section.

    • Match Number Player Amount Won Player Amount Won Difference Result
    Remote 1 Matt Hawrilenko +$199500 IJay Palansky -$174000 +$25500 Humans Win
    Remote 2 Nick Grudzien -$2000 Kyle Hendon -$118000 -$120000 Polaris Wins
    Live 1 Nick Grudzien -$42000 Kyle Hendon +$37000 -$5000 Draw
    Live 2 Rich McRoberts +$89500 Victor Acosta -$39500 +$50000 Humans Win
    Live 3 Mark Newhouse +$251500 IJay Palansky -$307500 -$56000 Polaris Wins
    Live 4 Matt Hawrilenko -$60500 IJay Palansky -$29000 -$89500 Polaris Wins

  • [July 2008] In dramatic fashion, Polaris wins the 2nd man-machine showdown with a record of 3-2-1. Polaris played against some of the best heads-up limit players in the world and came out on top with a decisive win against Matt "Hoss_TBF" Hawrilenko (left) and IJay "doughnutz" Palansky (right) in the final match. For more information on the match, please visit our man-machine page.

  • [June 2008] The CPRG is proud to announce that they are once again taking on some of the world's best poker players in a man-machine showdown. In a partnership with www.stoxpoker.com, the CPRG will face off against some of the world's best online pros. Nick "stoxtrader" Grudzien, Matt "Hoss_TBF" Hawrilenko, and IJay "doughnutz" Palansky are so far slated to play against Polaris at the 2008 Gaming Life Expo in Las Vegas, July 3-6. More details for the match can be found on stoxpoker's man machine webpage, and our own man-machine webpage.

  • [March 2008] A webapp version of the DIVAT tool is now in beta testing. The DIVAT tool provides an unbiased, lower variance estimator for money. This allows you to determine the winner of a poker match with a smaller sample size or more accurately. For more information on how the tool works, please consult Morgan's M.Sc. thesis or Darse's Ph.D. thesis.

  • [March 2008] Nolan's M.Sc. thesis has been added to the publications section. It investigates several techniques for opponent modelling in Kuhn poker.

  • [October 2007] Michael's M.Sc. thesis has been added to the Publications section. It presents some of the techniques used to build the Hyperborean (AAAI 2007) and Polaris (Man-machine match) bots.

  • [July 2007] The first Man vs Machine Poker Championship was played this summer. Polaris gave poker pros Phil Laak and Ali Eslami a tough time, but the pros squeaked out a 2-1 win with one draw. For detailed match and post-game coverage visit the Match Results Page.

    • $10/$20 Limit Texas Hold'em Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4 Sum
    Ali Eslami +$395 -$2495 -$635 +$460 -$2275
    Phil Laak -$465 +$1570 +$1455 +$110 +$2670
    Combined Score -$70 -$925 +$820 +$570 +$395
    Result Statistical Draw Polaris Wins Humans Win Humans Win Humans Win

  • [July 2007] The University of Alberta team won two of three events at the second AAAI poker bot competition. The University of Alberta team took first place in the equilibrium competition, first and second in the bankroll competition, and third place in the no-limit competition. The competition featured 43 bots from 15 teams.

    Limit Equilibrium:

    1st: Hyperborean07 (U of A)
    2nd: Ianbot (Ian Fellows, UCSD)
    3rd: GS3 (CMU)

    Limit Bankroll:

    1st: Qeqbot (U of A)
    2nd: Hyperborean07 (U of A)
    3rd: GS3 (CMU)

    No Limit Equilibrium:

    1st: BluffBot 2.0 (Teppo Salonen)
    2nd: GS3 (CMU)
    3rd: Hyperborean07 (U of A)

    For more details, please visit the tournament website.

    • Prospector logo

  • [June 2007] Our friends at Poker Academy recently released a new poker analysis tool called Poker Academy Prospector. This software allows you to import hand histories from many poker sites and analyze your game. A must for any serious poker player!

    • Phil and Jennifer

  • [June 2007] The first ever Man vs Machine Poker Championship will be played this summer, at the AAAI'07 conference. Elite pros Phil Laak and Ali Eslami will play a series of duplicate matches against the newest U of A program, Polaris. See the match website for full details!

  • [January 2007] Morgan's M.Sc. thesis has been added to the Publications section. It provides a better description of the DIVAT analysis tool, including a simplified proof of correctness, and applications to the Vegas'05 and AAAI'06 matches.

  • [September 2006] Darse's Ph.D. dissertation, and the recent journal paper on the DIVAT analysis tool, have now been added to the Publications section.

  • [August 2006] There was another barrage of media attention following the UofA victory in the AAAI'06 competition. Some local TV news coverage is available on youtube. Watch it and learn how to find the tumor in your opponent's brain!   :-)

  • [July 2006] The University of Alberta team has won the first ever AAAI poker bot competition, in convincing fashion, winning every match it played in both tournaments. The following summary crosstables give the average win rates, in millibets (small bets per game times one thousand):

    Normal Pace Alberta Bluffbot Monash Teddy Average
    Alberta x +50 +720 +410 +390
    Bluffbot -50 x +530 -190 +100
    Monash -720 -530 x +1170 -30
    Teddy -410 +190 -1170 x -460

    Slower Pace Alberta Bluffbot C M U Monash Average
    Alberta x +110 +180 +730 +340
    Bluffbot -110 x +120 +520 +180
    C M U -180 -120 x +650 +120
    Monash -730 -520 -650 x -640

    more detailed crosstables (with standard deviations)

    Numerous duplicate matches were played in each case, in order to obtain statistically significant results. Due to the short timeframe we had to prepare for the competition, we simply used a combination of two Sparbot programs (PsOpti4 and the new PsOpti6). The second place finisher was Teppo Salonen, a hobbyist programmer who built his own version of Sparbot for the Poker Academy software platform.

    A highly-publicized entry from Carnegie Mellon University did not perform up to expectations, losing to the U of A and to Bluffbot. No doubt the talented researchers at CMU will be back with a strong contender next year. Their new program will also need to play substantially faster to maintain the normal pace of Limit Hold'em. The special slow event (one minute per game) that was created to accomodate the CMU entry may not be repeated in future tournaments.

    More details of the event are available in this press release, and at the competition website. A full analysis of all matches will be performed over the coming weeks.

    • STACKED box

  • [June 2006] The new poker entertainment game STACKED, has finally been released, featuring the Poki AI and Xenbot from Poker Academy. The game has not been getting great reviews, but the AI is receiving kudos from the new audience.

    • Discovery Channel

  • [March 2006] The Daily Planet, a science and technology news program on the Discovery Channel, did another segment on the U of A computer poker research group, as part of a special series on the science of gambling. A video clip of the segment and a cover story are available on their website.

    • Poker Academy Pro 2.5

  • [Feb 2006] A new version of Poker Academy, PA Pro 2.5, has been released. The best training software for Texas Hold'em just keeps getting better. The CPRG is very proud of what Aaron, Terry, and the rest of the PA development team have accomplished, and we strongly recommend Poker Academy for any serious poker player. You can download Poker Academy and try the free demo yourself, or click here to view screenshots of the many features.

Previous News      

  • [July 2005] A new version of the Poker Academy software has been released. PA Pro 2.0 is a vast improvement on what was already the best software learning tool for the game of Texas Hold'em. The program features our world-leading artificial intelligence (including the Sparbot and Vexbot experimental AIs), along with a myriad of features for poker analysis. The new program adds No-Limit Hold'em, multi-table tournaments, and a free online poker server. You can download the free demo software here. [view screenshots]

    • Phil Laak icon Poki-X icon
  • [July 2005] World-class expert Phil "The Unabomber" Laak played an exciting match against our experimental Poki-X AI in Las Vegas (while the main event of the World Series of Poker was taking place just around the corner). Unfortunately, a short match with rapidily escalating blinds makes the outcome little more than a random coin-flip. The full story and a detailed analysis of the match will be made available in the coming weeks.

    • New Sci cover

  • [Jan 2004] New Scientist, "The World's No.1 Science & Technology Magazine", has a feature article on the U of A computer poker research group in their 2003 year-end double issue (cover date: Dec 20 - Jan 9, 2004, pictured above, pages 64-68).

  • [Nov 2003] Vexbot, an experimental adaptive program we are currently developing, won the gold medal at the 2003 Computer Olympiad held in Graz, Austria. Sparbot, our game-theory based program, took the silver medal.

  • [Nov 2003] The Daily Planet, a science and technology news program on the Discovery channel, did a segment on the U of A computer poker research group. A video clip of the segment is available on their website. Darse was also interviewed in a previously aired segment on the game of RoShamBo (aka Rock-Paper-Scissors).

  • [July 2003] Sparbot has been added to the available online games. This is a refined version of the pseudo-optimal player (PsOpti-2 architecture), as described in our paper for IJCAI 2003.

  • [June 2003] There has been some media attention recently, including an NSERC news release, a front page story in the Edmonton Journal, mention in a feature article in the New York Times, and a CBC radio interview.

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Last Update: October, 2007