Poker Pros Compete Against Self-Learning Computer Program

The Man vs. AI Computer heads up poker challenge is half over and man is showing the computer how it's done. Four poker pros face off with Claudio, a computer program created by the Computer Science department at Carnegie Mellon University, in the Brains vs. AI Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em poker challenge at Three Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh. Doug Polk, Bjorn Li, Dong Kim and Jason Les have spent a week playing against Claudico and were in the lead by $568,662 after 42,100 of 80,000 hands. "Claudico performs real-time reasoning while playing a hand and improves its strategy during the match by continuously computing," Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Tuomas Sandholm said. "This is quite possibly the highest-quality poker ever seen. Furthermore, both Claudico and the humans are improving their game throughout the event. Both sides are already playing stronger than they were at the start. "I have been extremely impressed by the pros' ability to improve and adjust their game no matter what curve balls Claudico has thrown at them." Doug Polk, up nearly $357,000, is performing well but says that Claudico's skills are impressive. "Playing Claudico has been unlike any other game I've ever played," he said. The final day of competition is May 8, 2015.