Computers are playing a good hand
Many people are acquainted with the idea of playing online casino games on their computers, but now research by University of Alberta's Computer Poker Research Group has shown that not only are computers better at playing poker than humans, they will soon be teaching us how to improve our poker game.
Studies into developing poker-playing artificial intelligence, which has the capability to detect when it is being given 'misinformation' (known to poker players as bluffing) has revealed some interesting results.
Dr Darse Billings, former lead architect of the University of Alberta's Poker Research Group software bots and now consultant to the project, told the Guardian: "Computer programs are going to teach a ton of stuff to humans about poker... humans don't actually play poker very well."
The results came as Polaris, the collective name for the Poker Research Group's bots, managed an impressive win against a team of highly experienced poker players, drawing once and then winning three games to the humans' two, in a recent match.
However, according to one player from the poker community, computers may be good, but they haven't rendered human poker players redundant just yet.
Chris Ferguson, who has a PhD in computer science from UCLA and won thousands of dollars of as professional poker player commented: "[Humans are] much better at taking advantage of mistakes by their opponents. Computers aren't very good at doing that. Computers aren't good at reading 'tells' - unconscious body language indicating how good the player's hand is - but they make up for that by not being readable themselves."
Of course, poker is not the first game in which computers have managed to catch up to humans in terms of ability. Both chess and backgammon were revolutionised when computers entered the mix; it seems poker is the latest in a growing line.