Poker Academy Blog

CBC Radio: Search Engine did a piece on Polaris today. Jesse Brown’s host today was Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer.

They discussed the various implications of poker bots in the wild to a very odd reference of the first Gulf War relating it to Poker.

Dr. Schaeffer discussed that bots could do a lot of harm to the online poker trade, and that people should be told that they are playing bots. He emphasizes this would allow a player the choice of man or machine opponents.

Dr. Schaeffer knows that one day AI bots will over take Human players, it is just a matter of time.

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Jesse Brown didn’t fair too badly against when we look at his net BB. He was losing 0.05 sb/h or 5.8 BB/100.

However, when we run the results through the divat analysis (removing randomness and luck from the results) we see that the long term potential loss (a gain for Polaris) would be staggering. At 0.34 sb/h, Polaris was well on it’s way to clearing out Jesse Brown at a rate of 17 BB per 100 hands. 

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CBC Radio: Search Engine
Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer

Sam :: Dec.20.2007 :: Poker News, Poker Academy Online :: 1 Comment »

Time to get your kids away from the Xbox and Wii and on to the Poker Table. A Harvard professor is touting  poker as a learning tool. 

“I see great advantage in hitting kids as early as sixth grade, when they’re dropping out of math,” said Charles R. Nesson, the Harvard Law School professor who began the society with a group of his students. “I’m thinking of kids who are into their video games but instead of Halo-3 and World of Warcraft, we lead them into a game environment that has real intellectual depth to it, and feeds their curiosity rather than snuffs it out.”

The skills at the poker table are said to create better lawyers and negotiators. The pot odds calculating can enhance and reinforce the algebra being taught in the school room. The traits that Nesson sees in his colleagues he says can be attributed to their Poker playing.

“I see poker as one tool to develop the kind of cognitive abilities that a lot of people don’t seem to be developing on their own, whether because those skills aren’t taught effectively in school or because they’re not learning it from their parents,” Mr. Woods said. So many of his Harvard Law classmates were or had been serious poker players, he said, “that I had to wonder what role poker played in all of us getting here.”

  Poker Academy has been working closely the University of Alberta Poker Research Group for a while bringing you many of the great bots. Polaris is the latest from the team and shows that Poker is a viable path for students. The solving of problems and research artificial programs with computer programs using poker as a basis makes the pursuit of education a more alluring endeavour.

The next time you have a poker night, think about teaching the kids the subtlety about your game. Or maybe a Sklansky book for Christmas. Allowing them to learn the mathematics of the game could lead to a life long appreciation of fine art of poker.

Who knew that a life lesson in pot odds could lead to a Harvard degree?

Article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/nyregion/12poker.html

Sam :: Dec.13.2007 :: Poker News :: No Comments »