Big data and poker-playing bots are blurring the line between man and machine(kernelmag.dailydot.com)
kernelmag.dailydot.com
Big data and poker-playing bots are blurring the line between man and machine
http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/16861/poker-bots-risk-gambling-big-data-adam-kucharski/
50 comments
> They made very annoying, aggressive plays that were difficult to counter, not taught anywhere in professional videos, forums or training sites
Mind sharing more on these strategies? I'm curious about what sort of strategy a poker pro would find so unique as to not recognize it from anywhere
Mind sharing more on these strategies? I'm curious about what sort of strategy a poker pro would find so unique as to not recognize it from anywhere
Sure. In poker you never play like you or your opponent(s) hold a specific hand, you always do the analysis against a range of hands. Every action (bet, call, raise) at any point (preflop, flop, turn, river) in the hand gives you extra information, which helps you narrow that range (more tightly define it) and help you make better, and hence more profitable decisions. Your range in every hand starts with all possible hands, and with each action gets more narrow.
The first strategy which we first noticed intuitively/by feel and then confirmed from stats, and which tipped us off to the whole thing, was that they would always fold or reraise (3bet) preflop. This was unheard of, as having a calling range preflop is incredibly important, as it has so many flow on effects for the rest of your strategy postflop (where the large majority of the hands play out). Most players (at least in 2010), had a polarized reraising (3bet) range, meaning they would mix very strong hands, with very weak hands, call with medium strength hands, and fold weaker hands. These bots had a very wide (higher %), and merged 3bet range, meaning they'd pick hands from the top down. It was mind bending to deal with as all of your experience, maths and theory away from the tables was wired to deal with a certain type and width of range and this was just so different.
The second main one was as follows. I've already described the situation where the action goes preflop raise, and reraise (referred to as a 3bet). You can counter this with a 4bet (yet another reraise), a valid and common strategy, again, ranges get even narrower here, but would still happen frequently (dozens of times a day). If each player started with $100, the action usual goes raise $3, reraise (3bet) to $10, reraise (4bet) to $22, then usually fold, call (very rare), all in $100 or reraise again ($30ish). The reraise is just so uncommon as it's difficult to make sensible range that isn't obviously strong. These bots would do this frequently. It's a very ballsy move, stops you in your tracks, and your only options are really to fold and give up your $22 and leave you scratching your head, or costs you $100 to call bullshit and go all in and find out if he's bluffing.
The last one that stood out off the top of my head was the river check raise. Check raising is when you act first in a hand, elect to check, let your opponent bet, then raise. You can do this both for value and as a bluff. It's an essential part of everyone's strategy, most frequently on the flop, less so on the turn and river. These guys would check raise the river a ton, and it was extremely effective. Again, it's a ballsy uncommon move (at the time) and was very profitable.
Here's the link from TwoPlusTwo (biggest and oldest poker forum) if you want more info.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/ala...
The first strategy which we first noticed intuitively/by feel and then confirmed from stats, and which tipped us off to the whole thing, was that they would always fold or reraise (3bet) preflop. This was unheard of, as having a calling range preflop is incredibly important, as it has so many flow on effects for the rest of your strategy postflop (where the large majority of the hands play out). Most players (at least in 2010), had a polarized reraising (3bet) range, meaning they would mix very strong hands, with very weak hands, call with medium strength hands, and fold weaker hands. These bots had a very wide (higher %), and merged 3bet range, meaning they'd pick hands from the top down. It was mind bending to deal with as all of your experience, maths and theory away from the tables was wired to deal with a certain type and width of range and this was just so different.
The second main one was as follows. I've already described the situation where the action goes preflop raise, and reraise (referred to as a 3bet). You can counter this with a 4bet (yet another reraise), a valid and common strategy, again, ranges get even narrower here, but would still happen frequently (dozens of times a day). If each player started with $100, the action usual goes raise $3, reraise (3bet) to $10, reraise (4bet) to $22, then usually fold, call (very rare), all in $100 or reraise again ($30ish). The reraise is just so uncommon as it's difficult to make sensible range that isn't obviously strong. These bots would do this frequently. It's a very ballsy move, stops you in your tracks, and your only options are really to fold and give up your $22 and leave you scratching your head, or costs you $100 to call bullshit and go all in and find out if he's bluffing.
The last one that stood out off the top of my head was the river check raise. Check raising is when you act first in a hand, elect to check, let your opponent bet, then raise. You can do this both for value and as a bluff. It's an essential part of everyone's strategy, most frequently on the flop, less so on the turn and river. These guys would check raise the river a ton, and it was extremely effective. Again, it's a ballsy uncommon move (at the time) and was very profitable.
Here's the link from TwoPlusTwo (biggest and oldest poker forum) if you want more info.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/ala...
I used to do a lot of this in real life. Not to say these aren't bots, but I seem to have discovered unconventional strategies in Chess and Poker due to never having had formal training - and I want to describe the rationale. They would work as effectively in real life as these bots did online:
When I had, say, suited connectors, I'd often reraise preflop (in late position). Why? So people would put me on a high hand. Since I was in late position, they'd be afraid to bet the flop, letting me see more cards cheaper than if I had not reraised preflop (the preflop betting usually isn't super large). By the time the turn arrives, I'd know if I had a pretty good chance to make a flush or straight on the river (or may have already done so).
Meanwhile, they still had me on high cards from the preflop raise so I represented it as such. If high cards came out on the flop and everyone was timid I could steal the pot by making a large bet bluffing that I had made a set with high cards and slowplayed the flop (that's how "confident" I was of my hand on the flop). If a high card came out on the turn I could also steal the pot by the even more believable story of preflop reraise followed by checking the flop and then "hitting" the right high cards on the turn.
But the biggest payoff would be when low cards came out and I would check, checkraise. Since I was late position, and representing high cards that didn't hit, I had people betting medium amounts on the flop to push me out. Often I'd be one card away from a flush or straight and just call them, "as if" waiting for a high card. If the turn completed my draw then I was all set for a call on the turn followed by a checkraise on the river.
In early position, I would definitely avoid raising with suited connectors because I wanted the maximum number of people in the hand, many with high cards, to suck out a large pot. Calling passively and checkraising the river. This last strategy netted me the most money. Also made people think I'm a lucky fish for giving them such a "bad beat"... but it was all in the stats involved in having a lot of people in the hand.
When I had, say, suited connectors, I'd often reraise preflop (in late position). Why? So people would put me on a high hand. Since I was in late position, they'd be afraid to bet the flop, letting me see more cards cheaper than if I had not reraised preflop (the preflop betting usually isn't super large). By the time the turn arrives, I'd know if I had a pretty good chance to make a flush or straight on the river (or may have already done so).
Meanwhile, they still had me on high cards from the preflop raise so I represented it as such. If high cards came out on the flop and everyone was timid I could steal the pot by making a large bet bluffing that I had made a set with high cards and slowplayed the flop (that's how "confident" I was of my hand on the flop). If a high card came out on the turn I could also steal the pot by the even more believable story of preflop reraise followed by checking the flop and then "hitting" the right high cards on the turn.
But the biggest payoff would be when low cards came out and I would check, checkraise. Since I was late position, and representing high cards that didn't hit, I had people betting medium amounts on the flop to push me out. Often I'd be one card away from a flush or straight and just call them, "as if" waiting for a high card. If the turn completed my draw then I was all set for a call on the turn followed by a checkraise on the river.
In early position, I would definitely avoid raising with suited connectors because I wanted the maximum number of people in the hand, many with high cards, to suck out a large pot. Calling passively and checkraising the river. This last strategy netted me the most money. Also made people think I'm a lucky fish for giving them such a "bad beat"... but it was all in the stats involved in having a lot of people in the hand.
It makes sense but did you engage in these strategies as frequently as the oc said he observed them? Like you said there were preconditions you needed eg suited connectors. That doesnt sound as likely to me as what oc commented on.
So these may have been bots designed by watching for patterns, seeing a few people like you do them, try them out, see success, push the envelope, and see even more success.
So these may have been bots designed by watching for patterns, seeing a few people like you do them, try them out, see success, push the envelope, and see even more success.
Sure why not. I am surprised why poker bots aren't better considering they can try different strategies over a huge number of hands. I was just saying that sometimes preflop reraising makes a lot of sense. The AlohaGo program made some awesome moves that challenge traditional theory. And so forth. That is what I was getting at. Not that they aren't bots.
What made you think that these groups of players were associated with each other? What made you think that they were bots, beyond just winning often?
To put it extremely simply, there are specific ranges of acceptable statistics about what winning play looks like in poker. With thousands of hands of data winning players can intuitively pick out stats that are out of line.
For example, there are two related stats: went to showdown, and won money at showdown. These calculate how often you get to the last card and reveal your hand against another player/group of players to win the pot, as well as the frequency you actually win these showdowns. Generally, the more you are showing down hands against opponents, the lower your chances of winning money, simply because it's not always possible on average to have better hands than your opponents above a certain frequency of times you're getting to showdown. If a bot/player had access to other players' hole cards (like actually happened on the Ultimate Bet network) a telling example might be that they go to showdown way more than average while also winning money at showdown far above an average rate.
There are tens (if not hundreds by now) of common poker stats, this is just a simplified look at one related pair.
For example, there are two related stats: went to showdown, and won money at showdown. These calculate how often you get to the last card and reveal your hand against another player/group of players to win the pot, as well as the frequency you actually win these showdowns. Generally, the more you are showing down hands against opponents, the lower your chances of winning money, simply because it's not always possible on average to have better hands than your opponents above a certain frequency of times you're getting to showdown. If a bot/player had access to other players' hole cards (like actually happened on the Ultimate Bet network) a telling example might be that they go to showdown way more than average while also winning money at showdown far above an average rate.
There are tens (if not hundreds by now) of common poker stats, this is just a simplified look at one related pair.
There are software tools which aggregate huge amounts of data (hands) from Poker platforms, like Holdem Manager. That's where you can see player stats like pre-flop, turn, river actions, percentages and so on. Once you have 2 players who played a lot of hands (+10k) and have the exact same stats numbers you should be a bit suspicious.
Yeah this. Dozen's of them with this weird strategy with a few very identifying features.
Edit: I can't recall the exact figure, but we had a few million hands combined.
Edit: I can't recall the exact figure, but we had a few million hands combined.
He said it: their strategies were very similar and never seen before, nor taught anywhere.
So, some people got together, or one person was playing many accounts, and cleaned the amateurs out. Similar, novel strategies does not imply a bot net.
I'm glad you're playing devil's advocate, and you're not wrong in that a single player could have multiple accounts, this was especially true on the Ongame network, as it provided the platform which sites could whitelabel to run their own poker room, with individual promotions/branding etc, while leveraging the benefits of a large shared player pool.
The thing that stood out was the length of the sessions played by these players. The regular professionals (regs) would play multiple tables at once, usually 4-8 tables (Ongame software was shitty and prone to crashing) for a few hours at a time (poker is mentally taxing). These guys were playing 8-12 sessions on single tables.
In terms of amateurs, I'm not taking offence, but many of us were playing full time for a living at the time, and their winrates were beating many of us, without any game selection (explicitly choosing to play with weak players).
The strategies were indeed novel - the one I can describe in layman's terms - they never just called a bet before the flop, they always folded or reraised. This is a huge paradigm shift from all conventional wisdom at the time, and a strategy that is very difficult to execute well (hard to go into details without getting into poker terms/theory).
While poker strategy was (and still is) constantly evolving the overall stats/strategies deviated so far from the norm that we all agreed we were up against a bot. Again, without going into details the strategy had a much more mathematical/game theory approach than the far more commonplace exploitative strategies that everyone was using at the time.
The thing that stood out was the length of the sessions played by these players. The regular professionals (regs) would play multiple tables at once, usually 4-8 tables (Ongame software was shitty and prone to crashing) for a few hours at a time (poker is mentally taxing). These guys were playing 8-12 sessions on single tables.
In terms of amateurs, I'm not taking offence, but many of us were playing full time for a living at the time, and their winrates were beating many of us, without any game selection (explicitly choosing to play with weak players).
The strategies were indeed novel - the one I can describe in layman's terms - they never just called a bet before the flop, they always folded or reraised. This is a huge paradigm shift from all conventional wisdom at the time, and a strategy that is very difficult to execute well (hard to go into details without getting into poker terms/theory).
While poker strategy was (and still is) constantly evolving the overall stats/strategies deviated so far from the norm that we all agreed we were up against a bot. Again, without going into details the strategy had a much more mathematical/game theory approach than the far more commonplace exploitative strategies that everyone was using at the time.
Raise or fold was an aggressive strategy when I was playing in the early 2000s. I think SuperSystem even talks about it.
The players I knew were very much into theory and the math of the game. It wouldn't surprise me if one, or multiple, of them were who you were playing against.
Of course, great bots can be made and run easily.
The players I knew were very much into theory and the math of the game. It wouldn't surprise me if one, or multiple, of them were who you were playing against.
Of course, great bots can be made and run easily.
I know a guy who was talking about the roulette prediction thing. He was an MIT guy, but a few years ago smartphones weren't that sophisticated and besides you'd have issues using them at a casino.
Rough plan:
- You can identify both the ring of the roulette table (transforms into an ellipse), the ball (shiny), and the green zero on the spinner (it's different from red and black).
- You can use a Kalman filter to guess the current location of the ball while updating your guesses, especially when the ball goes out of view. Same for the spinner phase.
- You can calibrate how fast the ball's orbit descends from a given speed.
- You know where the diamond shaped thangs (the things that perturb the path of ball right before it falls onto the spinner) are. There's a fixed number of them, evenly spaced. From the orbit decay you know which one it will strike.
- From the speed of the spinner, you know roughly where the ball will be when it arrives on the numbers.
- From experiments, you have a rough probability distribution of where the thang will distribute the ball.
- You don't need to be right every time. There's 33/34 numbers, and the house's margin is only one or two of those numbers (there's variants of roulette tables). Being able to rule out an equivalent amount of numbers tips you over the margin.
- Use Kelly criterion to maximise your equity. With finance you'd be crazy to use full Kelly, but I guess a roulette table doesn't have regime changes.
Rough plan:
- You can identify both the ring of the roulette table (transforms into an ellipse), the ball (shiny), and the green zero on the spinner (it's different from red and black).
- You can use a Kalman filter to guess the current location of the ball while updating your guesses, especially when the ball goes out of view. Same for the spinner phase.
- You can calibrate how fast the ball's orbit descends from a given speed.
- You know where the diamond shaped thangs (the things that perturb the path of ball right before it falls onto the spinner) are. There's a fixed number of them, evenly spaced. From the orbit decay you know which one it will strike.
- From the speed of the spinner, you know roughly where the ball will be when it arrives on the numbers.
- From experiments, you have a rough probability distribution of where the thang will distribute the ball.
- You don't need to be right every time. There's 33/34 numbers, and the house's margin is only one or two of those numbers (there's variants of roulette tables). Being able to rule out an equivalent amount of numbers tips you over the margin.
- Use Kelly criterion to maximise your equity. With finance you'd be crazy to use full Kelly, but I guess a roulette table doesn't have regime changes.
The Newtonian Casino talks about some students who designed a predicting computer, and smuggled it into a casino in their shoe. It was published in 1985, so anything they built would have been considerably less powerful than a smart phone, even one that several years old.
(It's a great book, and probably available).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Newtonian-Casino-Penguin-Press-Scie...
One interesting part of the book was that croupiers knew the wheels so well that they were able to spin them, and throw the ball to land predictably.
EDIT: In the US it's called "The Eudaemonic Pie" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eudaemonic_Pie
> The book focuses on a group of University of California, Santa Cruz, physics graduate students (known as the Eudaemons) who in the late 1970s and early 1980s designed and employed miniaturized computers, hidden in specially modified platform soled shoes, to help predict the outcome of casino roulette games. The players knew, presumably from the earlier work of Shannon and Thorp,[1][2] that roulette wheels obey Newtonian physics, and that by capturing the state of the ball and wheel and taking into account peculiarities of the particular wheels being played they could increase their odds of selecting a winning number to gain a 44 percent advantage over the casinos.[3]
(It's a great book, and probably available).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Newtonian-Casino-Penguin-Press-Scie...
One interesting part of the book was that croupiers knew the wheels so well that they were able to spin them, and throw the ball to land predictably.
EDIT: In the US it's called "The Eudaemonic Pie" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eudaemonic_Pie
> The book focuses on a group of University of California, Santa Cruz, physics graduate students (known as the Eudaemons) who in the late 1970s and early 1980s designed and employed miniaturized computers, hidden in specially modified platform soled shoes, to help predict the outcome of casino roulette games. The players knew, presumably from the earlier work of Shannon and Thorp,[1][2] that roulette wheels obey Newtonian physics, and that by capturing the state of the ball and wheel and taking into account peculiarities of the particular wheels being played they could increase their odds of selecting a winning number to gain a 44 percent advantage over the casinos.[3]
Here's the TV episode from "Cheating Vegas" on them: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CiWHcpU6snM . This show was pretty interesting if you're into finding out how people tried to get an advantage on the casinos.
i worked in anti-fraud for a large online gaming house for about six years from 2003 to 2009 so my information is not current. At that time, there were no bots (whether in the wild or in academic, eg, University of Alberta) that could competitively play no-limit, likewise for tournaments (which account for a large portion of the total hands played in online poker Sites). Anyone know if this has changed?
As someone who works in anti-fraud, would you be able to detect someone who was playing manually, but had a bot set up to tell them what to do (and then they would manually input the move)? Is that even illegal or against the rules?
great questions; here's where we drew the line (our Terms of Service (TOS) were fairly standard): it was within the TOS to use a "poker assistant"--an app that worked with the Site client (eg, PokerStars, or in my case, bwin.party)--provided that this app was populated with hand histories that you have personally generated against the opponents you are playing against. In other words, you cannot mine hand histories in bulk, feed them to your "assistant" and then let it tell you how to play.
keep in mind also that the whales in online poker are not high stakes players but "grinders"--folks who quit their day job to play a very disciplined style on low-stakes limit tables comprised mostly of beginners, and which requires multi-tabling (maybe 6 - 10 tables at once) 8 hours/day. So against that background, a bot playing 10 tables simultaneously for 10 hours each day, from a distance doesn't look so odd.
keep in mind also that the whales in online poker are not high stakes players but "grinders"--folks who quit their day job to play a very disciplined style on low-stakes limit tables comprised mostly of beginners, and which requires multi-tabling (maybe 6 - 10 tables at once) 8 hours/day. So against that background, a bot playing 10 tables simultaneously for 10 hours each day, from a distance doesn't look so odd.
You should be able to tell. It's fairly straight forward outlier detection; if someone is doing 20% better than anyone you've seen before you monitor them. If they continue to do better constantly you manually look, then you can either make a choice manually or have a system auto remove them. They may even remove you just because you are costing them too much money (depending how the game is setup).
It should be easy to artificially lower bot's advantage to 1-5%. It still would be profitable, but wouldn't stand out among other players.
Of course it's against the rules. People have done this in casinos with black jack. Definitely not something the casino is going to allow, because they lose the money if the boot plays better than humans.
I dedicated all of my free time to building poker bots from 2007 to 2009.
I was a part of the winholdem community, which a large group of us eventually got upset with the developer of the software and then rebuilt the software and called it openholdem.
The only ones that were successful back then was this small group who had their bots dump information about all the opponents at the table into a large database and built up profiles of everyone they encountered, and then programmed the bots to use these player profiles to figure out how to play against them.
Eventually this group stopped sharing their results with anyone not directly involved in their little project and went even more behind the scenes.
I imagine these things would be hard to detect since the botting software is running on a completely separate computer and only sending mouse clicks to the computer that is playing poker.
I was a part of the winholdem community, which a large group of us eventually got upset with the developer of the software and then rebuilt the software and called it openholdem.
The only ones that were successful back then was this small group who had their bots dump information about all the opponents at the table into a large database and built up profiles of everyone they encountered, and then programmed the bots to use these player profiles to figure out how to play against them.
Eventually this group stopped sharing their results with anyone not directly involved in their little project and went even more behind the scenes.
I imagine these things would be hard to detect since the botting software is running on a completely separate computer and only sending mouse clicks to the computer that is playing poker.
Over the last year there was a situation where a player was using and sharing Nash "charts" for no limit on Pokerstars. Originally PS had allowed the software, but decided to change its police since it was more than just a preflop starting hand chart.
I believe the charts were used in headsup SNGs, which makes sense since it eliminates a lot of variables in solving for game theory optimal plays, and a lot of the play is shortstacked. And if a human can look at a chart and click a button, then so can a piece of software.
More here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/3rd-part...
I've also talked to a few players who suspect there exist bots in headsup cash games that avoid playing regular winning players.
So I don't know if there are any 100% true general no limit bots, but there's definitely some automated play going on.
I believe the charts were used in headsup SNGs, which makes sense since it eliminates a lot of variables in solving for game theory optimal plays, and a lot of the play is shortstacked. And if a human can look at a chart and click a button, then so can a piece of software.
More here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/3rd-part...
I've also talked to a few players who suspect there exist bots in headsup cash games that avoid playing regular winning players.
So I don't know if there are any 100% true general no limit bots, but there's definitely some automated play going on.
I used to run a bot that would select my games for me. I developed it myself.
I played HUSNGs exclusively, and the bot would just scan the lobbies looking for below-average players to sit. It would them automatically sit them if I was not already playing 3 games (my winrate decreased drastically at 4 tables).
I had a 60% winrate during that time, which is very, very good in HUSNGs.
I played HUSNGs exclusively, and the bot would just scan the lobbies looking for below-average players to sit. It would them automatically sit them if I was not already playing 3 games (my winrate decreased drastically at 4 tables).
I had a 60% winrate during that time, which is very, very good in HUSNGs.
Yes, game playing AI has progressed immensely since 2009, as evidenced by AlphaGo. I haven't looked at poker playing specifically, but I'm convinced that if there's a high-stakes game played online that doesn't have known superhuman bots, that's merely because the people who have made those bots make a fortune on keeping it secret.
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2015/05/man-is-greater-than-ma... Person beats no-limit bot recently
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2015/06/suspected-bots-on-poke... Omaha bots winning $1.5 million in the wild.
I assume this (Omaha bot) is quite advanced past what you were dealing with?
In theory, an Omaha bot wouldn't have to be as advanced as a hold'em bot simply because the 'theory' of that game is not as strong as hold'em yet. Omaha still attracts a greater percentage of losing players as well.
I would be very surprised if there weren't any bots that "short stacked" in that time span. Not sophisticated bots coming up with amazing strategies but rather bots designed for automating a mundane task.
[I played semi professionally towards the end of that timespan, NLH cash]
[I played semi professionally towards the end of that timespan, NLH cash]
Limit Hold'em Heads-up is 'solved'. Over the long run, the AI will break even no matter who the opponent is (rake excluded, of course).
IIRC this involved making precalculations for the entire sample space, which is massive, but tiny compared to no-limit full-ring.
IIRC this involved making precalculations for the entire sample space, which is massive, but tiny compared to no-limit full-ring.
It wasn't solved.
It was "practically solved" - not a very scientific term put by the authors of that project (http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/). This means that the approximate solution is exploitable for about 0.1bb/100 hands. This is very close to the real solution but "solved" is a bit misleading as that term means something different when referring to games.
strong limit bots (including 6max) have been around for a while, and are one of the reasons for the demise of online limit games.
the technology exists for strong NL bots as well: http://www.pokersnowie.com/. there is a consensus among many expert player that pokersnowie is very strong. you can search twoplustwo or deucescracked for lots of disucssion.
i am not sure if bots as strong as pokersnowie have infiltrated online games, or to what extent they have. my guess would be that they have.
the technology exists for strong NL bots as well: http://www.pokersnowie.com/. there is a consensus among many expert player that pokersnowie is very strong. you can search twoplustwo or deucescracked for lots of disucssion.
i am not sure if bots as strong as pokersnowie have infiltrated online games, or to what extent they have. my guess would be that they have.
In the book you call gamblers the godfathers of probability theory, noting that it’s a newer area of mathematics than we might expect.
Well, Cardano was a bit than a physcian who happened to be a gambler ("Often considered to be the greatest mathematician of the Renaissance, Cardano was one of the key figures in the foundation of probability and the earliest introducer of the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem in the western world. He wrote more than 200 works on science."). [1]
It is still interesting that probability is newer than other branches of math. But it still dates back to the 15th century. It's more interesting that statistics is far newer, becoming codified in the early 20th century.
It's worth noting that most of mathematics was put on rigorous basis between the late 19th century (Cantor and Hilbert) and the early 20th century (Goedel, etc) but probability had to wait for Kolmogorov and friends a few years later.
And statistics as it exists now is not considered a branch of mathematics but its own science. Whether statistics has a rigorous basis or is inherently a series of "rules of thumb" is an open debate (often between Bayesians and Frequentests, for example).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerolamo_Cardano
Well, Cardano was a bit than a physcian who happened to be a gambler ("Often considered to be the greatest mathematician of the Renaissance, Cardano was one of the key figures in the foundation of probability and the earliest introducer of the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem in the western world. He wrote more than 200 works on science."). [1]
It is still interesting that probability is newer than other branches of math. But it still dates back to the 15th century. It's more interesting that statistics is far newer, becoming codified in the early 20th century.
It's worth noting that most of mathematics was put on rigorous basis between the late 19th century (Cantor and Hilbert) and the early 20th century (Goedel, etc) but probability had to wait for Kolmogorov and friends a few years later.
And statistics as it exists now is not considered a branch of mathematics but its own science. Whether statistics has a rigorous basis or is inherently a series of "rules of thumb" is an open debate (often between Bayesians and Frequentests, for example).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerolamo_Cardano
Maybe interesting I have built a backgammon bot in the past detailed history here https://medium.com/@arisAlexis/the-money-machine-dream-e4ab5...
Here's a backgammon bot implemented in practise https://github.com/alexhanh/Botting-Library for anybody interested.
It also contains highly optimised Blackjack bot. PartyPoker had a beatable blackjack due to bonus incentives they gave out (they've fixed it since).
It also contains highly optimised Blackjack bot. PartyPoker had a beatable blackjack due to bonus incentives they gave out (they've fixed it since).
Nearly everyone had a beatable blackjack, counting deposit bonuses, back in the day. They called it "Casino Whoring" or "Bonus Whoring." I started my poker bankroll that way and later moved into professional poker (HUSNGs).
I turned $100 into approximately $3500 with the whoring. My expected value was something like 2900--I got lucky enough to beat the table in addition to earning the bonus.
Many of them were something like "deposit $200, get $200 bonus, have to bet $xxxx before you can withdrawal" with approximately a $190 expected value if playing $1/hand blackjack, perfect play.
I didn't think it was any surprise to the casinos that they were beatable--I assumed they just relied on them as a loss leader.
I turned $100 into approximately $3500 with the whoring. My expected value was something like 2900--I got lucky enough to beat the table in addition to earning the bonus.
Many of them were something like "deposit $200, get $200 bonus, have to bet $xxxx before you can withdrawal" with approximately a $190 expected value if playing $1/hand blackjack, perfect play.
I didn't think it was any surprise to the casinos that they were beatable--I assumed they just relied on them as a loss leader.
It seems that Party was a popular target back in the day ;) I was too ashamed to put code on github.
On a related note, the team who built the best backgammon engine a while back (Snowie) has also released a poker version.
Also university of alberta has a fixed limit heads up bot that can beat almost anyone. I dont particularly find the article novel or well informed.
There was a big scandal 3-4 years ago with heads up nl chinese bot ring that got 1.5m approximately before getting shutdown.
That was on PokerStars' single table "double or nothing" sit&goes if I recall. As a consequence , PokerStars has changed the pay-out on such tournaments. Instead of all five winners getting the same amount, the prize pool is split between the last five remaining players based on their stack size (number of chips) when the sixth placed person is knocked out.
Are there any public datasets of poker games ?
yep, from the UC Irvine Machine Learning Repository (http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/Poker+Hand); a vetted data set of just over one million Texas Hold'em hands, 11 attributes per hand (suit and rank of each of the five cards plus the hand "value", eg, "full house")
Quick note for anyone trying to get to this link: remove the extra two characters from the end.
Michael Maurer's IRC Poker Database is a little old (2001) but here is a link
http://poker.cs.ualberta.ca/irc_poker_database.html
it was an interesting article but one of the worst sites ive seen for ad experience on mobile. I got sent to the top of the article 4 times for a new ad to load. Did anyone else experience this?
A group of us (cash game pros) discovered a group of players on the Ongame network around 2010. We combined our databases and found a few dozen players that all shared an unconventional style and had outstanding winrates.
They made very annoying, aggressive plays that were difficult to counter, not taught anywhere in professional videos, forums or training sites, and we're winning at a world class winrate.
All the regular pros talk and knew each other, and no-one knew who these players were.
Combined they took millions in winnings out of the network. We presented our collaborative research and investigation to Ongame and they didn't do a thing about it.
In more recent years players on Pokerstars have received refunds when their security teams have deemed them to have lost to bots.
Pokersnowie is the most advanced commercially available bot and they even have an API now.
I quit playing in 2011 and would strongly advise people staying away from online poker. It's a scummy world, the games are tougher than ever, the sites are shadier in their operation, run higher margins, and with the current progress in the AI/ML domains you're on a hiding to nowhere.
I was skeptical but saw this evidence first hand and lost thousands personally, and this was 5 years ago. Anyone playing online in 2016 that doesn't believe they're up against super sophisticated bots are deluded.
Happy to share more if people are interested.