Game Theory Optimal vs Exploitative Strategy

In poker, there are two primary types of winning strategies you can choose to play by in any given situation:

Exploitative: This is where you play in a way that you maximize your expected value (EV) in any given situation by appropriately countering your opponents’ sub-optimal plays and weaker tendencies. Yes, playing this way often opens yourself to be exploited, too, but often times the weaker opponents you’re targeting with this strategy will not change their game to appropriately counteract this, allowing you to reap maximal profits over the long run.

GTO (Game-Theory Optimal): This playing style is where you essentially attempt to play perfect poker yourself, which in turn only allows for your opponents to make mistakes against you (which is where almost all of your profit will be derived from). It always incorporates having bluffs or semi-bluffs mixed in with your value bets, can help clarify bet sizes to use, and more.

Which Play Style is Best in Poker: GTO vs. Exploitative?

Before delving into strategic concepts regarding GTO poker, it’s important to understand which of these two very different play styles is going to be more profitable for you to use as a beginner or more advanced player. The simple answer will likely be a combination of both, but usually more of an exploitable approach.

Simply put, most of the player population do not play GTO poker and often times open themselves up to be exploited in some facet of their gameplay and strategy, allowing for more profits to be made from them using an exploitative approach. In fact, it’s only in some of the largest games at the highest stakes that GTO concepts are fully utilized and seen in practice, and even then, exploitative plays are still sometimes used.

That said, though, knowing, understanding, and being able to apply GTO poker basics is going to help create an incredibly sound, solid foundation for your poker game – no doubt! Additionally, it’s important to have that baseline of GTO knowledge so that you can know how to appropriately deviate from it when necessary in order to maximize profits. 

Poker GTO Strategy

As illuminated in Ed Miller’s book, “Poker’s 1%,” the most fundamental concept that only the most elite poker players truly grasp and understand is that regarding frequencies, which could be in relation to cbets, bluffs, folds, calls, raises, etc. .

GTO poker solvers (downloadable online software – something that will be talked upon in a later section of this article) often will give solutions for how to play as optimally as possible in any given spot, and often, they recommend using a mixed strategies based on select frequencies. 

For example, in a given river situation, a solver may tell you to call with a specific hand within a range 70% of the time and fold it 30% of the time. It might also tell you that in a given spot, you should call 50% of the time, fold 35% of the time, and raise 15% of the time (with a certain range of hands).

Frequencies are such a fundamentally important and often unrecognized part of poker, but the concept of this runs true through the following 5 poker GTO concepts:

Preflop Starting Hand Ranges
To make up for positional disadvantage, players must open up tighter hand ranges than otherwise the further they are out of position. That said, it’s never enough to just open premium starting hands. Considering GTO poker ranges and principles, you usually want to have a good, balanced starting hand range from each position with at least some hands that will allow you to have a very strong poker hand regardless of how the texture of the flop comes (low, mid, high, disconnected, etc).

Below is a poker GTO preflop beginner poker chart for starting hands for online 6-max play, showing which hand ranges one should open-raise with, after the action has folded to them. The table is coded by colors representing different table positions (see key below).

[chart 1: poker GTO preflop beginner poker chart for starting hands for online 6-max play]

NOTE: It’s advisable for GTO play to use a mixed strategy for opening in the small blind, combining some open-limps with open-raises for various hands in the range, something that cannot be illustrated with the color system used for this chart.

Often times, the correct solution of deciding which hands to play is simply a math problem, which is something discussed below.[1]

Other preflop GTO poker charts can include which hands should be played after a raise, which hands to 3bet, which hands to continue with after raising and now facing a 3bet, etc. Using solvers can assist you with choosing which hands to continue with preflop and in what capacity (call / raise / re-raise / etc).

Pot Odds

As a poker player, you should always be looking to make +EV decisions that render you profit. Understanding and applying principles of pot odds (and equity) can certainly help you out with that.

 Poker GTO Examples: Postflop Pot Odds

Let’s say that we have JhTh on a board of 9h8h2s4c (open-ended straight-flush draw). There’s $50 in the pot and we have $40 left in our stack. Our opponent has you covered, and he goes all-in.

Playing GTO here would simply involve making the calculations to determine whether or not a call would be +EV or –EV, as calling or folding are our only options. (There would be no further action in the hand.)

We assume any remaining heart, Queen, or 7 will give us a win on the hand. This means that we have 15 cards (outs) to improve out of 46 remaining unknown cards, meaning we’ll improve 32.6% of the time.

 However, what if our opponent has a set already some portion of the time? In that case, if the 4h or 2h came, it could improve our hand to a flush, but it also might improve villain’s hand to a boat. If we reduce the number of outs from 15 to 14.5 to account for this, this would bring our equity to 31.5%

Now we must calculate the pot odds we’re getting.:
(bet amount / (our bet + pot)) = pot odds = $50 / ($40 + $90) = $50 / $130 = 30.7%

This means we must have greater than 30.7% equity to make a profitable call. As we have 31.5% equity (even when we’ve taken the possibility of villain having a set into account), we can see that this is a profitable call.

Yes, the majority of the time we will lose, but over the long run, we will show a small profit from calling here, thus rendering a call to be correct.

NOTE: Additionally, it should be noted that the concept of pot odds is not only applicable to draws. If an opponent bets 50% pot, you are getting 3 to 1 odds on a call, this means you should win 25% of the time in order to make a call profitable. Therefore, if you take your current hand (and use an equity calculator like "Equilab" on a PC or "PokerCruncher" on a Mac) and it has better than 25% equity against your opponent’s perceived range, then you should call.

 Poker GTO Examples: Preflop Pot Odds

Assume you raise to 3bb preflop and get 3bet by the button to 9bb. Action then folds to you, and you must decide how to act. In situations like these, we can actually use pot odds to assist our decision-making.

In this case the size of the pot is:
= (our open + 3bet size + small blind + big blind)
= (3bb + 9bb + 0.5bb + 1bb)
= 13.5

This means that we need to call 6bb to try and win a pot of 13.5bb, meaning we would need to have equity of approximately (6bb / (6bb + 13.5bb)) = 30.7% against the range of the 3bettor in order to continue.

 However, there are at least 3 additional factors that need to be considered:

1. Positional Disadvantage: Being out of position on our opponent, it will be much more difficult to realize our equity in the hand, as our opponent will be able to effectively utilize his position better in order to put us in tough spots. As a result, we should usually add ~7% points to our equity needed in order to profitably continue against villain’s hand range.
2. Implied Odds / Reverse Implied Odds: This is the ability to win or lose a significant amount of more money post-flop (than what we invested pre-flop) as a result of the remaining money in our stack.
3. Villain’s Hand Range: While statistics on 3bet stats can be gained with a big enough sample size (i.e. 8% 3bet stat from button), the numbers don’t tell us which 8% of hands villain could be 3betting with. Both of the charts below represent 8% of possible hands, using both a polarized and depolarized approach.

Depolarised Hand Range (7.4% of hands): [chart 2]

Polarised Hand Range (7.54% of hands): [chart 3]

You can see that the contents that make up each hand range is vastly different. Additionally, we don’t necessarily know if he’s 3betting some hands a certain amount of the time and calling or folding those same hands another percentage of the time.

 However, knowing how to correctly proceed against a specific hand range comes down, in part, to using an exploitable strategy. Sticking with GTO, the next concept will help allow you to continue with ease.

3. Minimum Defence Frequency (MDF):

This concept refers to the % of hands in our range that we must continue with (either by calling or raising) in order to not be exploited by our opponents. It should be noted that this concept is most commonly used in off-table study and can be difficult to apply in-game.

However, studying these beginner GTO concepts off-table will assist with your decision-making during a hand, especially against opponents who show relentless aggression.

The formula to determine MDF is: POT SIZE / (POT SIZE + BET SIZE) = MDF

To help simplify this, here is a poker GTO chart of common bet sizes you may encounter in a poker hand, and the corresponding minimum defence frequency you must apply.

 Bet Size relative to Size of Pot (%)
Minimum Defense Frequency (%)
100%
50%
75%
57%
66%
60%
50%
67%
33%
75%

To determine which hands, you want to continue with, take the number of hand combos in your starting hand range and then use the MDF to calculate how many combos you should be continuing with. Generally, you should be choosing the hands with the best playability and highest equity against your opponent’s betting range.

As an example, suppose you open-raise in the HJ and the BB calls. The flop comes Qh9h6c. Your opponent takes the unusual play of leading into you for a ½-pot bet. Based on MDF, we should be continuing here with 67% of our range.

Using the starting hand chart above, we can determine that we’re opening 254 combos from the HJ, something that looks like this: [chart 4]

According to MDF, we must be defending 67% of these hands, or 170 combos to be unexploitable. Hands that we should continue with are those that retain the highest equity and playability, including:
Flush draws
Open-Ended Straight Draws
Gut-Shot Straight Draws
Over cards
Any Pair or better
That means that perhaps our flop continuing range will look something like this:

[chart]

Highlights to note include the following:
We eliminated pocket pairs of 4’s and 5’s, as these have little chance of improving on the turn or river. Additionally, we’re only continuing with AX combos of hearts (with a flush draw) that don’t have a pair or better to go along with it.

Lastly, we’ll include 4 combos of AJo, all 3 which have the Ace of hearts, as well as AcJh, which can block a backdoor nut flush combo.

For simplicity, let’s suppose we call with all these hands and that the turn is a blank (2 of spades). Our opponent bets full-pot. Now to remain unexploitable, according to MDF, we must defend 50% of our flop continuing range, which means we must leave ourselves 85 of 170 combos. This strategy should be comprised of our best flush draws, our best straight draws, and our best made hands, which might look something like this:

Notice here, we’re continuing with all of our combos of:
Nut flush draws
Pair + flush draws
GS + flush draws
Second Pair, Top Kicker+
One combo of JJ that doesn’t block the flush draw or backdoor flush draw.

 The same exercise can be repeated on the river, however this time, we’d be able to fold all of our missed draws to a bet and keep all of our strongest made hands. Be sure to think about blocker effects and card removal when calling with some weaker hands (to avoid overcalling and to decide which specific combos are best to continue with, according to MDF.

4. Finding Balance: Poker GTO Bet Sizing

To remain unexploitable (and to remain balanced and unpredictable), you must balance the number of bluffs to your value bets when you bet. The number of bluffs you include in your betting range is dependent on how big of a bet you make (in relation to the pot). This concept is solely applicable for river situations, as draws (“bluffs”) on the flop and turn still have equity, whereas on the river, busted draws have no equity (and are therefore total bluffs).

NOTE: For the flop, generally, you want a bluff to value bet ratio of about 2 : 1. This is because there won’t be as many made hands on the flop as on the river and also because your bluffs will usually still contain equity. For the turn, a “bluffing” ratio of ratio of about 1:1 is advisable. As for the river, use the chart below to determine GTO poker bluff frequencies (relative to your bet sizing choice):
Bet Size
Value Bet %
Bluffing %
25%     (1/4-pot)
83%
17%
33%     (1/3-pot)
80%
20%
50%     (1/2-pot)
75%
25%
66%     (2/3-pot)
72%
28%
75%     (3/4-pot)
70%
30%
100%   (Pot)
67%
33%
150%   (1.5x-pot)
62%
38%
200%   (2x-pot)
60%
40%

The way this chart works is in relation to the pot odds you’re laying your opponent. If you bet 50% pot, your opponent is then getting 3:1 pot odds and must therefore win 25% of the time, if he wants to call. As a result, poker GTO theory says that you should have 25% bluff combinations included in this betting range, so that you’re indifferent to your opponent calling or folding.

The best bluffs to include in a river betting range would be ones that don’t block the hands that you want your opponent to have (or not have). For example, in the case of missed flush draws, betting with missed Ace-high flush draws would often be a mistake because you block a missed flush draw that you want your opponent to have when you’re bluffing on the river (meaning that it would subsequently be less likely he would have it, if you held two of the flush draw cards). In addtion, ace-high usually carries with it some showdown value still on the river.

 If a 3-flush came on a river and you wanted to raise, bluff raising with some AX combos holding the Ace of the bluff suit on the board would be an acceptable option. If you block the nut flush, it means that your opponent cannot have that nutted combo in his range.

5. Cbetting Frequencies and Bet Sizes

 GTO beginner concepts and strategies do not only consist of bluffs and value bets. They will also allow you to see how often you should be cbetting in certain spots and also show which bet size to use! Poker solvers have helped top players dramatically with these aspects, which is exactly what we’ll discuss in the next section.

Poker GTO Software

Various poker GTO solvers have been released in recent years to assist beginner, intermediate and advanced players in showing how to correctly play poker from a more balanced/GTO standpoint poker in various situations.

PokerSnowie and PioSolver are the most common programs selling on the market right now to assist with GTO work and poker study behind-the-scenes.

 While you won’t be able to compute the various hand ranges of players and what hands to bet or check with in real time, taking the time with these programs to study in-depth GTO play strategies will ultimately pay you dividends. It will also help increase your level of thinking and understanding to be more GTO for poker.

The GTO methodologies that you’ll improve upon from using solvers can include balancing ranges, choosing optimal bet sizings, mastering cbet frequencies, and more.

Poker Tournament GTO

Tournaments often have shorter stacks in later stages than what will be typically found in cash games. As a result, in order to follow guidelines for GTO poker, Nash charts have been created, tweaked, and used over many years in order to know what hands to shove with (and also when to call, depending on what number of big blinds you have when you find yourself shortstacked).

Do note that the charts provided below are push/fold charts for heads-up play. Therefore, if you’re in a table with multiple players the “pusher” chart can only be used if play is folded to you in the small blind; as such, the “caller” chart can only be used if you’re in the big blind, and also would assume a small blind “pusher” (with a much wider range than if a player in another position was open-shoving).

For the pusher chart, if you divide all the numbers by 2, you can see which hands you should be pushing with from the Button. By the same thought, if you divide all of the original numbers on the chart by 4, you’ll find a solid pushing range from the CO. Do note, though, that some of the figures will be impossible to calculate accurately for the CO or positions further to the right of the blinds because the highest figure that the chart provides is “20+” big blinds, which is also a figure used for quite a large range of hands in the push chart.

Both of the GTO charts below are ideally applicable for heads-up play, but sometimes, using an exploitable strategies for HU shortstack strategy could lead to more +EV decisions against certain opponents. Simply following the charts below, though, will lead your play to being GTO and unexploitable.

 Within the spectra of possible push/fold charts, poker pro Max Silver created a super helpful GTO push/fold software called SnapShove. (It’s available for access online via desktop at www.snapshove.com or as iOS or Android apps (most common).)

With the full version, players can access poker GTO examples for shove ranges for a range of situations. (There’s full customizability for # of bb’s you have, what position you’re in, how big the ante is relative to the big blind (if applicable), and a plethora of other options.)

In Conclusion

With the constant evolving landscape in the world of poker, players are always developing their skills to improve and get an edge in the game. While often times, using an exploitable strategy will render higher profit margins than using a GTO-based approached all the time, knowing and understanding GTO beginner and more advanced concepts can certainly help you can an edge for a few primary reasons:

It creates a solid baseline and foundation for your gameplay.

It makes it easier to know how to deviate your strategy (re: exploitative) for certain villains when you have such a baseline established.

It allows you to avoid levelling wars with your opponents, because you’ll be making sound poker decisions based on reliable, unexploitable GTO strategy.

It doesn’t require that you to make assumptions about your opponents’ play styles.

It doesn’t call for you to be results-oriented.

This article is simply the tip of the iceberg for GTO concepts and poker theory. Continue studying these strategies provided, and also seriously consider investing in the GTO poker solver software listed above, as these can assist you in making incredible improvements to your game.

https://www.888poker.com/magazine/strategy/beginners-guide-gto-poker

I NEVER BLUFF

[caption id="attachment_11" align="alignnone" width="248"] Mr Lucky Poker[/caption]

Poker Rules Of Engagement

Updated 2/11/2017

ALL POKER IS LIKE WAR

You need to be prepared, but remember that also like war, no plan survives the first shot or engagement.

1. Bring an ACE. Preferably, bring at least two Royalty cards. Bring all of their friends who are connected to Royalty.

2. Anything worth betting on is worth a raise. Aggression is cheap. Passiveness is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. If your image is predictable, you're probably not raising enough nor using position correctly.
5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Unless you have him out gunned, then draw him in for the kill.)
6. If you can choose what to bring to a shootout, bring an ACE and a friend of Royalty.
7. Ten years from now, no one will remember the details of the game, hand, or tactics. They will only remember who won.
8. If you are not betting, you should be observing, counting stacks, and tagging opponents.
9. Aggression is relative. This is a BIG one. (Most aggressive action will be more dependent on "pucker factor" than the inherent validity of the hand)
10. Use a position tactic that works every time.  (All skill is in vain when an big stack thinks you are weak)
11. If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Timidity is dangerous, better to enter with boldness. The end is everything.
12. Always Lie; Conceal your intentions. Cultivate an air of unpredictability. 
13. Always have a plan and have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work.
14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible. The visible target should be in FRONT of your gun.
15. Do not give comfort or information to the enemy.
16. Don't drop your guard.
17. Challenge. The risk of never challenging is always greater than the risk of challenging.
18. Create Fear. If your opponents aren’t sure what attacking you will cost, they will not want to find out.
19. Do not fight the LAST battle: Use Guerrilla Warfare of the Mind.
20. If you have the opportunity to eliminate your opponent, you must do it. It is the rule in war!
21. Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
23. Everyone has a weakness. Find it and exploit it. 

I NEVER BLUFF

Limping & Sun-Tzu

Updated 2/11/2017

I was watching one of the poker shows on TV, I try to record most of them. One of the announcers asked the other, "I wonder what The Art of War (Sun-Tzu) has to say about limping?"
Being a advocate of The Art of War and Poker, I thought I'd take a look at it. There has already been a good book on the subject written by David Apostolico, Tournament Poker and the Art of War, and there is also a web site devoted to it. Sun Tzu's Art of Poker

From "The Art of War" by Sun-Tzu
In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack:
the direct -betting/raising- and the indirect -checking/limping-;
These two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.
The direct and the indirect lead on to each other in turn.

It is like moving in a circle — you never come to an end.

    (It's also an effective act of randomness to keep your opponent off balance.)

Masking strength with weakness is effected by tactical dispositions.
Thus one who is skillful at keeping the enemy on the move maintains deceitful appearances, according to which the enemy will act.
He sacrifices something, (so) the enemy may snatch at it.

• Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline,
• Simulated fear postulates courage; 
• Simulated weakness postulates strength. It's all part of the Lying Game of Poker!

If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he (is) sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch -a wall of chips-. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve (defend).
If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the enemy from engaging us even though the lines of our encampment be merely traced out on the ground. All we need do is to throw something odd and unaccountable in his way -Randomness.

• The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided.

By holding out baits -limping/slow playing-, he keeps him on the march; then with a body of picked men he lies in wait for him.
By holding out advantages -showing weakness- to him, he can cause the enemy to approach of his own accord; or, by inflicting damage, he can make it impossible for the enemy to draw near.

Whoever is first -to act-with -active or passive Aggression- in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle - will arrive exhausted.
Patience is a virtue in poker, more so in cash games than tournament, however, 

“In a balance of mutual terror, whoever ACTS FIRST has the ADVANTAGE!"

• Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.

Numerical weakness - lack of chips - comes from having to prepare against possible attacks. Numerical strength -many chips-, (by) compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us.

• Though the enemy be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from fighting. 
• Scheme so as to discover his plans and the likelihood of their success.

If we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire straits.

• When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped.

Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances -Randomness and Deciet- .

"Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows"; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.
Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics -Randomness- in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.

• So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.

So, Limping is a weakness than can mask strength.

I NEVER BLUFF

Way Ahead or Way Behind?

Updated 2/11/2017

How many hands can beat you? What's your position? Who are you up against?

I forgot this concept when I had JJ, in position, recently, in a live ring game. Dealt JJ the hand before and got an easy win. The gods must have been smiling, or smirking, when on the exact next hand I got JJ - again, called a small raise, everyone else folded, so I was heads up against a good, loose aggressive player. The flop went something like 952, rainbow, and he bet about half the pot and I called. The turn was something like a 7, he bets about half the pot, I raise the pot, he re-raises, and I go crazy stupid All-in and get called. He shows QQ, the river is a King.

What was I thinking? I wasn't!
You hold an over pair to the board, but it's not the nuts! The boards not scary, but you could be behind a set, even 2nd or third best set, yet alone the top set. You could be behind the three top pocket pairs that can beat you.
You could be way ahead of any other hand and up against a drawing hand, or NOT.

A "Way Ahead or Way Behind" situation requires the following:

• You are heads up, before or after the flop, and you at least have a pocket pair or paired the board on the flop.
• You do not know whether you are ahead or behind?
• If you are ahead, your opponent has very few outs (typically two or three).
• If you are behind, you have very few outs.

Pot control is the key!

Controlling the size of the pot in your favor is crucial to your success as a poker player. The theory is simple: reduce your losses to a minimum and increase your winnings to a maximum.

When you have hands on the extreme ends of the scale, putting this theory into practice is fairly easy - if you have the nuts, you pump the pot; if you have rags, you fold. According to the theory of pot control, you should be working to maximize your profit in this situation. Only a few of the possible starting hands will have your hand dominated here.

If you automatically fold every single time you're in this situation, you'll lose every pot. The amount you lose will only be equal to that of your preflop contributions. This is a small loss, but a guaranteed one nonetheless.

Before you can decide how to play the hand, you have to figure out which opposing hands are good for it, and which hands are bad for it. Any constant loss is a leak in your game; too many leaks and you'll cease to float.

The players with a hand better than yours will be wanting to extract maximum value from their hands as well. Oftentimes, unless you can discern a very good reason to do otherwise, you want to control the pot, and keep it small by betting and checking. Usually you want to play Small Ball.

Who's bluffing?
Players are less inclined to bluff at a small pot, helping to eliminate the risk of the worse hands stealing the pot away from you. It also allows you to make bluffs and moves with less risk. The smaller the pot is, the less money it takes to make a bluff at it.

Don't get greedy! It will ruin your game!

Your goal is to extract as much, if not more, value from the hands you beat as you give to the hands that beat you. The times you successfully bluff a stronger hand into folding should be enough to render your hand profitable.

The most important concept to remember with a way ahead/way behind hand is that the only players willing to call a large bet will be the players who have you beat. For this reason you want to avoid large bets and large pots. Control the action, control the pot and wait for your spots to punish your opponents.

While "Way Ahead or Way Behind" confrontations are somewhat common, you must be careful to identify them correctly. If your opponent is semi-bluffing, for example, with eight, nine, or more outs, you must play far more aggressively. Only when you can be sure you are in a textbook "Way Ahead or Way Behind" situation can you afford the passive play that typically optimizes your results.

For the most part, poker is not an adrenaline-crazed action game, it's a patience game. The players who are able to control the pots, and play the grind, are the ones who still have chips left when the perfect situation arises.

Play strong, play smart and when you are dealt the nuts, 

milk it for all it's worth.

http://www.pokerlistings.com/search?searchString=trouble+spots

I NEVER BLUFF

Vanessa Rousso on Game Theory

You think women can't play poker,  think again!

Vanessa Rousso

In college, she was on the Dean's list. After studying some game theory, she became proficient with the Rubik's Cube and then chess. However, because she considers both to be fairly objective static games, she began to prefer poker, which incorporated human psychology that allows for inferior hands to win. She graduated early from Duke University after two and a half years with a major in economics and a minor in political science in December 2003. Her collegiate duration of two and a half years was the shortest time to graduate in the history of Duke. Rousso began law school in 2004 and was the inaugural recipient of the Chaplin Scholarship from the University of Miami. During Law School at the University of Miami School of Law, she served on the editorial board of the University of Miami Law Review. A poker player since the age of five, Rousso began serious poker tournament play during her summer break from law school. Rousso was in the top 5% of her law school class, but she did not finish law school. Now, excluding online winnings, she ranks among the top five women in poker history in terms of all-time money winnings.

I NEVER BLUFF

“Brains Vs. Artificial Intelligence

Updated 2/11/2017

Artificial intelligence bot vs. the poker pros

By Noah Bierman

May 21, 2015, 3:00 a.m.

Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh
The Game. Texes Hold'em No Limit - Heads Up
14 days and 80,000 hands of no-limit Texas hold ‘em

Claudico, an AI from the same lab at Carnegie Mellon University that gave birth to Deep Blue, the computer that beat chess master Gary Kasparov.
The Pros: Jason Les, Dong Kim, Bjorn Li, and Doug Polk.

Its name, Claudico, means "I Limp" in Latin, a reference to the fact that it does not mind calling a bet in a fashion that many professional poker players believe to be weak and foolish.

The contest was part exhibition, part science experiment, and part test of humanity's limits. Lead scientist Tuomas Sandholm recruited four players recommended by top professionals to compete in a type of Texas hold 'em poker known as "heads-up, no-limit," a one-on-one game involving an especially complex array of betting strategies and choices.

The bot risked all its available chips on one hand while holding a 10 and a 5 of different suits — very bad cards — and bet big on another hand when the chances that its opponent could make a full house or a flush were great.

"It has a very sophisticated model," said Sandholm, the lead developer. "It just doesn't know that it's bluffing because it doesn't know the word 'bluff.'"
Unlike professionals, Claudico did not track its opponents' strategies. And its own game seemed random. For Brown and the other programmers, poker is the measuring stick, but not the goal.

They are really aiming to advance the field of artificial intelligence to fight cyberwars, perform negotiations and plan medical treatments, among other tasks that require complex decision-making with limited information.

Hold 'em poker, in this regard, offers a different challenge than chess or "Jeopardy!" because two cards are dealt facedown to each player; an opponent always has a large chunk of information missing. Five cards are then dealt face up for both players to use in forming their best potential poker hand.

The players beat the computer, but not by much.

Humans Out-Play an AI at Texas Hold ‘Em—For Now
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/humans-play-ai-texas-hold-em-now/
Claudico can only get close to Nash Equilibrium; it doesn’t react to the specific tendencies of individual opponents. The machine instead approximates ideal rational play, no matter the circumstances.

So the professionals adopted a constantly changing, exploitative strategy designed to locate and attack specific quirks in Claudico’s play. For example, it couldn’t process card removal—the way in which the cards in one’s own hand affect the likelihood of another player having specific card combinations. Les says that Claudico didn't factor that in, so the humans could tell when the AI was making big bets to disguise a weak hand, trying to force its opponent to fold.

That tell meant Les and his colleagues could pick off gigantic bluffs on the river by calculating that their hole cards made it unlikely Claudico had a hand as big as its bet would suggest. “It was writing a check it can’t quite cash,” says Les.

Claudico couldn't adjust to unusual bet sizing. That’s a big problem; it meant that the AI didn't always responding correctly. The humans capitalized on that. “Bjorn started using the most unusual bet sizes,” Les says. “He was falling in between the known sizes a lot, and was causing Claudico to have difficulties.”

When the final hand of the competition was completed, the players had wagered around $170 million (theoretically), and the team of humans professionals was ahead $732,713.

“While humans may still be ahead for now,” says Bowling, “it’s really just the beginning of the end.”

Poker has become one of the best ways to quantify the true power computers have in a way that is tangibly testable against a human opponent.

Unlike chess, poker is a game of incomplete information—no player has all the available data. An algorithm capable of determining optimal strategy for incomplete information scenarios could have applications for cybersecurity, medicine, and military strategy.

“Poker is now a benchmark for artificial intelligence research, just as chess once was,” said Sandholm. “It’s a game of exceeding complexity that requires a machine to make decisions based on incomplete and often misleading information, thanks to bluffing, slow play, and other decoys. And to win, the machine has to outsmart its human opponents.”


This was Heads UP poker!
How would it do at a full table or short handed 6 max or even with just two other players?

(Update)
OK, they did it again in February 2017. In the previous matchup, the pros won. The new computer named "Libratus", designed by Carnegie Mellon University, the same designers that built "Claudico". This time the computer beat (badly) 4 other professional poker players out of 1.8 million dollars (not real money though). Again, heads-up Texas Hold'em.

Let me know when it wins the main event at the WSOP against thousands of poker players.

I NEVER BLUFF