Artificial intelligence program ‘Pluribus’ beats professionals in six-player Texas hold ‘em poker

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, with Facebook’s AI initiative, announced their program had beatthe world’s best poker players

AI programs have already beat us humans at draughts, chess, Go and two-player poker. But never multiplayer

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Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University announced Thursday that their program defeated a group of top pros in six-player no-limit Texas hold ‘em. Photo: Reuters

Published: 3:56pm, 12 Jul 2019Updated: 10:52pm, 12 Jul 2019

Artificial intelligence programs have bested humans in draughts, chess, Go and two-player poker, but multiplayer poker was always believed to be a bigger ask. Mission: accomplished.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, working with Facebook’s AI initiative, announced Thursday that their program defeated a group of top pros in six-player no-limit Texas hold ‘em.

The program, Pluribus, and its big wins were described in the US journal Science.

“Pluribus achieved superhuman performance at multiplayer poker, which is a recognised milestone in artificial intelligence and in game theory,” said Tuomas Sandholm, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon.

Sandholm worked with Noam Brown, who is working at Facebook AI while completing his doctorate at the Pittsburgh-based university.

China's 19-year-old Go player Ke Jie reacts during the first match against Google's artificial intelligence programme AlphaGo in Wuzhen. Photo: AFP

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