[AlienBoy]

[ QUOTE ]
if some one could design a computer to take that into consideration surely they can design a computer to handle all the straight flush fullhouse etc. etc. possiblities ches is way more complex than poker poker is all bout mathmatical probalities the probalitiy your rockets will hold up againts 10 people in the game, the probaility that half will fold, the probaility the aces are good if the board hits 3 of the same suit or 3 cards in sequence, there is not that much to consider in poker as it is in chess. my point is if they can design a computer to beat a human in chess surely they can design one to beat a human in texas holdem.

[/ QUOTE ]



I think your statement is completely wrong for exactly the reasons I attempted to infer in my original post.

Chess can be solved by brute force, which is largely what Deep Blue did. It can only be solved by brute force however because it is a game of nearly complete information. I say "nearly complete" because you don't know what your opponent is *thinking* - though you do know the available possible moves, and you can analyze thousands of move branches.


In poker, and most especially in multi handed situations, you have a fraction of the available information that you have in chess, so brute force analysis is impossible.

And much of the available information is subject to manipulation.

E.g. Is seat 3 betting with AA or KK? Or is he representing AA or KK? Is seat 4 overcalling with a draw? Or slowplaying a set?


Added on top of the uncertainty of available information, is the randomosity of the progress of the hand, and in hold'em the ability of certain cards to improve your opponent more than it improves you, and which is even more challenging in multi handed situations.

Now while some of this can be "poker stoved", much of it relies I think on human intuition.

For myself personally, in a live game my advantage is in my reads. I feel comfortable making certain plays as +EV when I can put my opponents on a specifically narrow range of hands. Even though that play is -EV for a wider range of hands.

I do not believe a computer can make such a judgement call on a human.

If I was playing against a computer, I would play against them as if it were someone I could not read intuitively - but since I would expect the computer to be making +EV game theory plays, I'm pretty sure I could I could manipulate information enough (i.e. bet sizes etc) that the computer would not be able to read me accurately, either. In fact, I think if I simply randomized my bet sizes the computer wold be unable to play effectively as over time it would be unable to find any pattern to my betting.

Or a strategy might be to play very consistently, always showing folded cards - then after a certain amount of play, reverse play styles completely. There would certainly be enough lag while the computer reassessed my play style change to steal pots.


Of course as I write this I wonder if this is the answer to a functional computer model - Play one way, switch gears and play random, switch and play TAG, switch and fish for a few hand, switch and play LAGTAG, etc.



Regardless and back to my original post, I still believe that "brute force" cannot be used to solve a NL multihanded game.



AB