Chess vs. Poker vs. Computer

[AlienBoy]

From the early days of computing, the ability of a computer to play chess has been held as a milestone event. And as we know, a few years ago a purpose designed computer from IBM indeed bested a best living human chess player in a match.

But is chess really the important milestone? It was considered the important computing milestone as chess was/is thought of as a deeply intellectual game - and indeed it is. However, it is a game of complete information, and thus it can be played by a computer using brute force, which is essentially what DeepBlue did in winning the match.

http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/home/html/b.html


But what about poker? Can a computer compete effectively against a human in a game of deception and incomplete information?

I don't think so. Even with an algorithm using game theory, I don't think there is enough information for a computer to make a brute force analysis that is ultimately +EV. Any skilled human playing this computer should be able to outplay it through manipulating pot odds, randomizing play, and exploiting the computer's plays.

Having said that - could the computer's play be randomized in such a way that the human is placed in a lose-lose situation? But then, wouldn't the human recognize that and place the computer in a lose-lose situation?

And I should mention that I speak mainly of NL - I think a computer could be +EV in a limit game for a number of reasons. But I think programing a computer to play NL effectively is an enormous challenge, and possibly more difficult than the challenge of beating Kasparov at chess.


Thoughts?


AB