This AI will battle poker pros for $200,000 in prizes

Artificial intelligence captured the world's attention last year when it defeated humanity's champion at the game of Go. It was a landmark event for AI, much like the moment 20 years earlier when IBM's Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997. Starting next week an artificial intelligence system named Libratus, developed by a team at Carnegie Mellon University, will try to establish a new milestone: beating some of the best human players at Heads-Up No-Limit Texas Hold'em poker. While Libratus may one day be listed in the history books alongside Deep Blue and Alpha Go, it's actually attempting to solve a very different kind of problem. Go and chess are perfect-information games: each player knows exactly what moves have been made and what space is left on the board to consider.