University of Alberta poker bot Deepstack defeats Texas Hold 'em pros - Cantech Letter

The University of Alberta's Computer Poker Research Group created DeepStack, an artificial intelligence program that defeated professional human poker players at heads-up, no-limit Texas hold'em. Apart from this win being the first of its kind, it bares significance in assisting to make better medical treatment recommendations to developing improved strategic defense planning, stated DeepStack: Expert-level artificial intelligence in heads-up no-limit poker, which was published in Science. DeepStack brings together approaches involving games of perfect information, meaning both players see what is on the board, and imperfect information, where it reasons while playing, using intuition through learning to reassess its strategy with every decision. Computing scientist Michael Bowling, professor in the University of Alberta's Faculty of Science and principal investigator on the study, said poker has presented an ongoing challenge to artificial intelligence. "It is the quintessential game of imperfect information in the sense that the players don't have the same information or share the same perspective while they're playing," explained Bowling.