Is there a perfect NLHE Bot? Could there be?

[jonny quest]

A BOT is only as "good" as the human who designed/programmed it.

That said, we know a computer program can do the following:

- collect relevant player and game data, including win rates, opponents' cards and wagers, and other stats. PokerTracker is good example of such software.
- make game relevant calculations regarding pot odds, EV, hand strength, showdown calculations. PokerAcademy is but one example of such simulation software.
- process complex formulas, involving a great many variables (both random and fixed), quickly and efficiently, and render decisions based on these formulas.

In short a well designed BOT, can process much of the information that is discussed in these forums.

Starting hand requirements. Wagering strategies. Opponent analysis. When a computer program can integrate sound poker principles regarding position, stack size, opponents’ historical play…with the addition of game theory concepts such as optimum bluffing frequency… a BOT may emerge capable of beating many human beings.

[Rudbaeck]

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The bot is not better than any human in that it does not capitalize on mistake to win the maximum. It will merely never lose a HU Freezeout.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually it will lose up to half the freezeouts. But given an infinite sample it wouldn't lose more than half.

A wild guesstimate is that it would win 55% of the games against me, and 50.1% of the games against Phil Ivey. But Ivey would in turn probably win 65% of the games against me.

All given deep stacks.

This is an interesting non-transitive effect, Ivey can beat me harder than the bot can, but he can't beat the bot.

A bot that "can't lose" is alot easier to build than a bot that extracts anything near optimum value from opponent mistakes. What the bot does is assume that I always make the perfect countermove. The very definition of the perfect countermove is that I can't make a mistake and stumble into a better move.

If there were three of us then the two can force the third to have to switch strategy. In a HU game one can never force the other to move from a Nash Equilibrium.

A Nash Equilibrium is not 'perfect strategy', as it doesn't exploit mistakes.

If you think about why Game Theory was originally used for you get a more direct intuition about what is happening. It was used to solve Cold War problems, where winning is impossible. No scenario either USA or USSR could come up with could guarantee victory, hence all strategies came to revolve around not losing. (The simplest excercises given to students are usually about finding win/win situations.)

I think my muddled and bad metaphor threw OP into this wild side trek.

[doh742]

assumption 1 : there is a mathmatically correct way to play poker that guarentees winning in the long run.

assumption 2 : this "correct" play is known.

assumption 3 : We have the ability to program a computer to play using this strategy exclusively

assumption 4 : the computer or "bot" will follow this strategy perfectly every hand it plays, always making the correct mathmatical play.

conclusion : since the computer can never go "on tilt" and play "wrong" building a "bot" that will win consistently in the long run, and post guarenteed profit, is possible

sounds fairly simple to me

to say the perfect bot can't be built, you need to disprove any of the 4 assumptions i made...otherwise, the perfect bot has to be able to exist

and i know, i am not a math wiz, i am looking at it from a logic perspective, so...math guru's, i can't discuss odds with you, nor am i a computer tech, so i can't discuss programming with you...however, NONE OF THAT INVALIDATES THE ARGUEMENT. simply because i can't program it myself, because i don't understand all the math involved in poker, or that I lack any programming knowledge of an advanced level, doesn't discount the logic. it is logically possible.

[PokerEveryDay]

A NLHE Bot, NO...A LHE Bot, maybe.

[twoakers]

They have one that plays expert chess, I would guess thay can make one play very profitable poker. Better than all humans.....I doubt it.

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
A NLHE Bot, NO...A LHE Bot, maybe.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actuallt the math isn't one iota harder in NLHE. Both domains have the same constraint, they can only be solved HU.

Even at a multiplayer table I'll argue to my dying breath that pot-limit is the only one that is significantly harder. I don't really find there to be a big difference in difficulty between NL and Limit, while PL is very complex. The inability to overbet the pot makes it trickier in so many ways. (This might be coloured some by the rampant lack of fish at PLHE, it's a specialized game really.)

[TommyChong]

[ QUOTE ]
They have one that plays expert chess, I would guess thay can make one play very profitable poker. Better than all humans.....I doubt it.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a big difference between chess and poker. In chess there is nothing hidden. A computer can see the board and compute all of the info just as a human would, although much faster and more thoroughly than most of us can. But poker is a game of limited information and that is where the psychology comes in. This is quite a statement, but I don't think we will see a robot in our lifetimes that can beat the best players over the long haul. I'm sure there is one that can beat me though [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[doh742]

unbeatable, in the short run...no. unbeatable by the best humans in the long run...i think so. as i said in an earlier post, if there is a system of playing poker that mathmatically guarentees winning long term, if you don't vary from it, then it is only a matter of programming the computer to play by that strategy.

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
There is a big difference between chess and poker. In chess there is nothing hidden. A computer can see the board and compute all of the info just as a human would, although much faster and more thoroughly than most of us can. But poker is a game of limited information and that is where the psychology comes in.

[/ QUOTE ]

This actually doesn't matter. There are plenty of incomplete information games that computers already play at a perfect level. (Though all far simpler than multiway hold'em games.)

And there exists atleast one complete information game that is so complex that a human with one or two years playing experience beats the snot out of any and all bots, namely Go.

[Borgland]

Dues ex machina?

No computer can comprehend human emotions. You can program the correct math but not the emotional variable.