AI Poker Computer Programme Moves To China

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated May 18, 2017

Upgraded version to take on Team Dragons

Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) artificial intelligence computer program Libratus will be showcased during a China exhibition with a Winner-Take-All prize of $290,000.

AI computer programmer Libratus exceeded expectation when it convincingly bested its human rivals in the “Brains Vs. Artificial Intelligence: Upping the Ante” 20-day poker contest between four human players (see previous InfoPowa reports) culminating earlier this year in January.

A version of Carnegie Mellon University’s Libratus will play six top Chinese players in a 36,000-hand exhibition featuring a different AI, named Lengpudashi or “cold poker master”.

Team Dragons, which is being led by Alan (Yue) Du, a Shanghai venture capitalist and amateur player who won the $5,000 Buy-In, No-Limit Hold’em category of the 2016 World Series of Poker, will play 10 hours per day with the human players each playing two hands at a time.

“I am very excited to take this new kind of AI technology to China,” said Tuomas Sandholm, professor of computer science and co-creator of Libratus/Lengpudashi with Ph.D. student Noam Brown. “I want to explore various commercial opportunities for this in poker and a host of other application areas, ranging from recreational games and business strategy to strategic pricing, cybersecurity and medicine.

“This is an exhibition, not a match, challenge or competition,” he added. “We are running a relatively small number of hands, so this is not a scientific experiment like the Brains vs. AI competition in January.”

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