Little GTO

There's an interesting thread on 2+2 about whether the top poker pros use game theory as part of their strategy. It appears that some do while others are blessed with an innate ability that acts as a substitute.

Today there are bots employing GTO (game theory optimal) strategies that could beat any human in heads-up limit hold'em (LHE). In the beginning of the thread, no less than Durrrr (Tom Dwan) issued a challenge whereby he was willing to take on any bot in LHE. There were a few takers but as of yet, Durrrr has not agreed.

No limit hold'em (NLHE), with its different betting structure, is a much more complex endeavor when it comes to programming a GTO bot. In fact, the largest game ever solved was checkers (2007), which took a team led by Jonathan Schaeffer nearly 16 years and involved 200 desktop computers. NLHE is more complicated than checkers.

Incidentally, Professor Schaeffer had this to say about solving chess :

"The number of chess positions possible (as calculated in several chess books, a couple of which are chess encyclopedias which probably quote from other sources) is greater than the number of atoms in the universe (assuming that it is 10-15 billion light-years in diameter). So roughly, the complete game tree would not fit on a computer the size of the universe. But, the entire game tree does not have to be on the computer at once. And many positions are not important. Some experts in artificial intelligence think that a very large computer (larger than any in existence, but certainly smaller than a planet) may be able to solve chess by calculating for a few thousand years, maybe for hundreds of years."

Better than a slowroll

I'm sitting in the 5 seat and a local to my right comes back with a visually appealing dish which he starts eating at the table. I ask him what it is and he gruffly replies "What's it look like?"

Hmmm, I have no idea and just say "Sorry for asking."

Shortly thereafter, he moves to the 2 seat, and about an hour later he is all-in against the 9 seat who calls. Shithead shows a set of 8's while the 9 seat tables 64 for a straight. Shithead gets up and leans forward as he has trouble discerning the winning hand at the opposite end of the table.

"Is that a straight?" he asks.

"What's it look like?" I chime in without missing a beat.

A chimp and a chair

After 495 days...

Full Tilt Poker officially reopened for real money play today at 12:00PM GMT (4:00AM PT). As was to be expected, there were some teething problems (cashier functionality, inability to login etc.), but this didn't prevent FTP from regaining number 2 spot with over 40,000 players online after a few hours.

As the countdown proceeded and with 15 minutes to go before FTP went live, one particular poster on 2+2 couldn't contain himself :