Poker Calculator News - Some Big Minds Behind Poker Software

If you've been around the world of online poker long enough, you are quite likely aware of the sub-industry devoted to self-analysis tools. Broadly speaking, these are programs which grab all your hand histories and generate statistics about your play, in the service of self-analysis, so you can find your weaknesses and improve. By and large, the industry leader in this field has been Poker Tracker, preferred by very respectable online communities. Certainly, Poker Tracker has become the benchmark by which new products are compared, and I would argue deservedly so. I used it myself for a good while, with a modest database of about 55K hands.

You'll notice, careful reader, that I say, "has been Poker Tracker," because I submit for your consideration that a new benchmark has been set. The good people of Poker Academy have been kind enough now to bring us Prospector.

Who are the "good people" of Poker Academy? Well this is fundamental to our discussion here because within our midst of all the designers of poker software in this industry, is the honored presence of some pretty well distinguished University researchers, recognized the world over.

The researchers came to prominence in July of 2007, when an event occurred in Vancouver, BC, Canada, that highlighted the first ever Man vs Machine Poker Championship. This contest pitted Phil "Unabomber" Laak (who is quite a poker math enthusiast himself) and Prince Ali Esmali against Polaris, an AI limit hold'em expert system developed by the University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group. The final score was 2-1-1 for Man, not exactly a ringing knockout for Homo sapiens, but Phil Laak did very well and played his absolute best game to win here. The battle was actually described as grueling by both of the humans. Polaris, the "Machine" apparently had no comment on the match. My bigger point here is, yes, there is a group of AI researchers pushing the envelope in game theory and decision-making with incomplete information, using poker as their model.

Using AI (artificial intelligence) to solve problems of incomplete information has potential implications for political science, economics, emergency management, warfare, stock exchanges, climate change, and did I mention these guys are a pretty serious brains trust? The leader of the group, Darse Billings, titled his Ph.D. thesis, "Algorithms and Assessment in Computer Poker." If you have the time and are willing to exert the effort, he essentially lays out the road map of teaching computers how to play poker, particularly how to deal with misinformation (bluffing) and incomplete information (not seeing your opponents' hole-cards), with suggestions about the implications for broader problems of decision-making in real-time, dynamic, complex situations.

Soon enough, with big minds like these guys developing products, my feeling here is that there is going to be software, where the term "BOT" simply won't do justice to the depths and capabilities of poker software of the future.

Marty Smith rates and reviews (using videos) all of the online poker calculators so you can see the product being used before you decide which one is right for you. He also developed some strategy videos for using poker calculators in online tournaments.

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