Computer take on top poker players - and loses
Artificial intelligence may have mastered chess but Claudico system 'busts out' against best players in Texas Hold 'Em marathon
Doug Polk, one of the world's best poker players, shovelled egg whites into his mouth with a plastic fork and slurped unsweetened oatmeal from a paper cup, 13 days into the oddest tournament he has ever entered.
But his opponent, Claudico, did not struggle with fatigue, mental breakdown or hunger, despite having played 80,000 hands over two weeks, a schedule four times more rigorous than Polk's. Nor did Claudico crack dumb jokes or worry about maintaining a poker face.
Claudico has no face at all. It is a computer programme, an artificial intelligence bot, and one of the savviest computer poker players in history.
Claudico and its immediate predecessor have defeated all the best computer programmes, as well as a pretty good professional player. But Claudico had never battled elite professional players until this April, when its developers staged a two-week showdown at a downtown casino.
The Carnegie Mellon University programmers were eager to see how Claudico would measure up.
Would it attain the status of Deep Blue, which defeated grandmaster Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997, or Watson, which crushed the top Jeopardy players in 2011? Or would it reveal itself a hollow shell, unworthy of a seat at the green felt table?