A Computer Just Clobbered Four Pros At Poker

About three weeks ago, I was in a Pittsburgh casino for the beginning of a 20-day man-versus-machine poker battle. Four top human pros were beginning to take on a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence program running on a brand new supercomputer in a game called heads-up no-limit Texas Hold'em. The humans' spirits were high as they played during the day and dissected the bot's strategy over short ribs and glasses of wine late into the evening. On Monday evening, however, the match ended and the human pros were in the hole about $1.8 million. For some context, the players (four men and the machine, named Libratus) began each of the 120,000 hands with $20,000 in play money, and posted blinds of $50 and $100.