poker vs chess wich is easier??

[Montrealcorp]

hi,i just post this here for a reason...some players here gave the impression in couple of treads: poker couldnt be tought like chess ...

of course i was agaisnt this assumption and some of them make this kind of conclusion:
a poker program couldnt be as good vs human as a chess program vs other humans so far ..reason was that it was harder for poker then for chess.....

i was submitting in the contrary that far less work had been put in poker program then in chess programs by developper and company,the results of lot of draws and some wins by a chess program (i must had with the aid of a super computer like deep blue,w/o i doubt it would even be possible...)accomplished in the 21st century vs world chess champion was due to the effort invest in and not on the basis of chess was easier for a computer then for poker....

unfortunately its in french,but im glad it came out in the newspaper

http://technaute.lapresseaffaires.co...plet.php?id=81,12399,0,072007,1369392.html&ref=victoire

http://technaute.lapresseaffaires.co...plet.php?id=81,12399,0,072007,1369919.html&ref=cyberpresse

conclusion...even thought it took over 20(intensive)years and 30 (experimental)years for a total of 50 years for a chess program to be able to draw vs a chess champion.....it took far less time for poker pogram to almost draw vs poker champion...i guess case closed now huh??

poker can be learn like chess and much more easier then chess with books and any other mediums.....soon with poker programs as well!!

pshil laak was one of them if u dont care to look the article...

[KSOT]

poker

[Montrealcorp]

unfortunateky the links doesnt work directly
..u need to click it and then going from the end of the adress bar in the new page and erase till u reach "nouvelles" dont erase it then press go again.
just go to the 23/07 date and press the title of the 1st article:
Poker: l'homme contre la machine

then for the 2nd article,title is at the top of the page for now:

L'homme l'emporte contre la machine au poker

good read for the ones interested in the result and for AI discussion

[Gonso]

[ QUOTE ]
conclusion...even thought it took over 20(intensive)years and 30 (experimental)years for a total of 50 years for a chess program to be able to draw vs a chess champion.....it took far less time for poker pogram to almost draw vs poker champion...i guess case closed now huh??

[/ QUOTE ]

1) I believe Laak & the other guy won, albiet barely. Not sure why Laak is chosen to represent humankind, but eh. This is a job for Barry.

2) Sample size was a joke, 2k hands.

3) The length of time isn't really a good measure. Computers today are VASTLY, VASTLY better then they were 20 years ago. You could probably get more computational power out of a new home PC today in 1 year than a late 80's machine for 20 years.

4) They've solved checkers, and we can infer with what we know that chess and poker can be solved as well, at least in theory. However there are so many branches that this is impractical.

5) A true chess champion will virtually always destroy a good amatuer player. The reverse is not always the case in poker. Gary Kasparaov/Jamie Gold.

[TIGERsrm]

I don't know but poker must be more of a mental test, or do chess players go on super mega monkey tilt too?

[jeffnc]

I think topics like this are kind of fascinating.

It's interesting to me that certain types of things are trivially easy for computers, while being rather difficult for humans. By that I mean computers can do them in almost no time at all, while for humans the task would take a long time (from minutes to years). An example would be complex arithmetic, or a large amount of arithmetic.

In contrast, some things are trivially easy for humans, even 3 year old children, while being almost impossible for computers. An example would be pattern recognition. (This is why it's easy to defeat bots by simply requesting a user to type in distorted letters displayed on the screen.)

Consider how humans play chess and how computers play chess. Humans process a small amount of discrete tactical information, related to brute-force move trees. A player might consider "if I do this, then he might do one of 5 things, then for each of those I might reply in one of 5 ways." That is pretty difficult to process that tree for a human, so that's as deep as he goes. For a computer this is trivially easy.

On the other hand, strategy tends to be easier for humans and more difficult for computer. An experienced player might make a move early in the game that he knows will give him an advantage later in the game, far beyond the level he can actual think in terms of move trees. But here's where it gets interesting - the computer has trouble with this too. Partly because it can't think strategically, and partly because it has no advantage over the human - the move tree has gotten so big and so long to calculate that even computers can't do it! And that's why it's taken so long to come up with a computer than can challenge the best humans.

Now poker is a different matter. The computer is now at a big disadvantage because it can't process move trees, because it can't see the other players' cards. It has to figure in bluffing, and other random, inconsistent responses from the human. It has to rely on heuristics, which are difficult to program. But it's not impossible to program. Theoretically, it would be possible to program a computer to play as well as a human, taking away all physical tells (not THAT would be a challenge - hook up a video camera to a computer to see if it could pick up tells!)

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
4) They've solved checkers, and we can infer with what we know that chess and poker can be solved as well, at least in theory. However there are so many branches that this is impractical.

[/ QUOTE ]

Chess is theoretically solvable, but as you say probably not possible now. I wonder if it will be solved in my lifetime. I'd be interested to read the results of that :-) Do you have an opinion on what the result would be?

[ QUOTE ]
5) A true chess champion will virtually always destroy a good amatuer player. The reverse is not always the case in poker. Gary Kasparaov/Jamie Gold.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't really agree with this, and here's the reason. When comparing different sports/games, we are almost always comparing apples to oranges with regard to time frame. For example, what if the World Series were only 1 game? Would that be a very good test? What if the US Open consisted of just a single hole?

You can see what I'm getting at - the issue is timeframe, and making it equivalent. The nature of golf is that we generally think 72 holes is about right, but it's also about our limit of attention span, and practicality. Still, the Campbells, Curtises, and Hamiltons of the world still often win. Chess tends to be a pretty test length-wise, so that the best player almost always wins.

However this simply isn't the case with poker. The timegrame is so long that finding the best player in any reasonable time format simply isn't practical.

This is the crucial issue that US lawmakers simply can't grasp, for example.

[Montrealcorp]

tilt in chess is of course possible..

I saw this situation often(its even typical):
a guy after a well played game comes in the ending with a big plus advantage.

He makes ,due to pressure(lets say he fight for third place wich gives X money),an oversight wich is a big mistake(mistake in ending is more important then a mistake in the opeing and mid game this is why its a big mistake)bringing the game to a tie.

The guy who was winning earlier comes under tilt a bit saying to himself im so dumb bla bla and is concentration goes down a bit and permits the adversary to make a great move.
The opponent take a big plus for himself,the earlier winning player get discourage(tilting more) more and is chance to make a small oversight(since is already losing u need only to make a slight mistake in the ending to loose)is bigger and he will probably lost, unless is got a strong mental force...voila!

another ei: in the 60s in a chess world championship match between petrossian and spassky if i remember correctly(i know the situation exist but not sure about the players but im at 90% sure),petrossian under pressure make the bigest oversight(mistake) ever in world championship match and let is Q and K check by a knight fork losing the game instantly..even a beginner could of prevent this from happening..

anyway,the match between laak vs Elsami vs the computer proves that a computer can integrated psychologycal concepts
(the computer used bluffs and used deception as well in the match vs lack and alsemi )and now, as they described in the article, psychological traits will be able to apply to other domain in the futur from a computer

[Montrealcorp]

well jeffnc is the answer to your question:



"Chess is theoretically solvable, but as you say probably not possible now. I wonder if it will be solved in my lifetime. I'd be interested to read the results of that :-) Do you have an opinion on what the result would be?

answer:

first a program now named chinook KNOWS ALL the moves possibilitites in checkers ,500 billions of billion(a lot huh?)and cannot loose but the best game ends up in ties...

now as for chess with the brute force of multiple computer we have now,to be able to solve all the probabilities:

arcticle quote:

"Il n'est pas encore question de s'attaquer à toutes les combinaisons du jeu d'échecs dont le nombre astronomique occuperait les ordinateurs d'aujourd'hui les plus puissants pendant plusieurs siècles, selon les scientifiques."

wich basically means....even with the most powerfull computer today,because of the astromomical high number of chess possibilities(seems like the number of checkers moves possible in a game is a joke??),would still take a couples of century S (dont forget the s and it more then 2...)

[Crazy Porto]

poker is much more easier, but if your the smartest guy in the world chess would be much more easy.

And chess has no variance but you have to have one hell of a brain to make a living out of playing chess.