Technology: Claremonters dealt a good hand

“Over the years, the game of poker has attracted more and more attention worldwide with the popularity of televised Texas Hold ‘em tournaments like the high stakes World Series of Poker. In the process, professional poker players have become celebrities, with catchy nicknames like Action Dan Harrington, Phil “the poker brat” Hellmuth and Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson.

Getting swept up in the poker craze, a local software developer and his friend created a poker program that took top honors in this year’s Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Computer Poker Competition in Alberta, Canada. After going undefeated in the no-limit, heads-up category, Jay Cordes, 36, co-developer of BluffBot 2.0, took the news in stride.

Academic: Harvard professor’s poker panacea

“Poker teaches people to think for themselves, it is a key component of individuality and a prime aspect of managing resources,” Prof Nesson said, admitting that some of these instincts for survival hardly encouraged notions of mutual trust.

Business dealmakers could learn from poker the art of avoiding making the first offer, he added, while teenage tearaways could take from it life skills such as patience, composure, respect for their foes and understanding someone else’s point of view. Law graduates would understand the law of evidence and diplomats could apply the art of bluffing to international relations.

Computer: In Poker Match Against a Machine, Humans Are Better Bluffers

“For anyone stuck on a casino stool, playing hours of video poker, rest assured: humans can still beat a computer.

Phil Laak pitting his poker skills against a software program. Mr. Laak, working with a partner, Ali Eslami, won two rounds out of three.

But computers may soon dominate on the felt-top table, as they have on the chessboard.

Academic: Poker Pros to Face Off With Computer

“Poker champion Phil Laak has a good chance of winning when he sits down this week to play 2,000 hands of Texas Hold’em _ against a computer. It may be the last chance he gets. Computers have gotten a lot better at poker in recent years; they’re good enough now to challenge top professionals like Laak, who won the World Poker Tour invitational in 2004. But it’s only a matter of time before the machines take a commanding lead in the war for poker supremacy.

Just as they already have in backgammon, checkers and chess, computers are expected to surpass even the best human poker players within a decade. They can already beat virtually any amateur player.

Academic: Success in Poker – How much of it is luck? How much of it is skill?

“Since the Main Event of the 2007 World Series of Poker is coming up in a matter of days, I found an article I came across in the July 2007 issue of Bluff magazine written by Aaron Brown and Brandon Adams that combined quantitative social science with poker to be extremely interesting. Aaron Brown, a financial trader and poker aficionado, has written a book about the intersection between poker and finance: The Poker Face of Wall Street. Brandon Adams has written a couple of books dealing with similar themes: Broke: A Poker Novel and The Story of Behavioral Finance.

What was interesting to me about their article, Luck and Skill in Poker, is that they came up with a way to quantify the extent to which luck (and skill) contribute to success in poker. They took the pre-tournament betting odds posted on Betfair.com of various professional poker players for the Main Event of the World Series of Poker.”

The Econophysics Blog (07/03/07)

Academic: Harvard Ponders Just What It Takes To Excel at Poker

“By making the case for poker as a skill, aficionados hope to roll back the law, and even win the game newfound freedoms in states where wagering on poker is currently banned. Poker has been on a tear for years in the U.S. and is “rampant, in a good way,” among Harvard law students, Prof. Nesson says. Poker-players-turned-celebrities vie for million-dollar purses on ESPN and the Travel Channel. Millions of Americans now play the game with some regularity. The Department of Labor last year recognized “professional poker player” as an official occupation. Even Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who sent his regrets for the Harvard session, plays in a regular game.”

Wall Street Journal (05/03/07)

Academic: Trip Report – Poker in the Court of Public Opinion

“I attended a pretty interesting meeting yesterday about the UIGEA and strategies for legitimating the game of poker in general. It was an impressive crowd consisting of some prominent lobbyists and lawyers for the gaming industry, Poker Players Alliance president Michael Bolcerek, professional poker players Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, and Andy Bloch, some researchers and statisticians, some experts on gambling addiction, and some other academics from fields such as artificial intelligence, psychiatry, and psychology.

…Is Poker a Game of Skill?

This was kind of the centerpiece of the meeting, which was a mistake, in my opinion. I was somewhat persuaded that there are some legal strategies that could hinge on proving that skill predominates over chance in poker, but it seems to me that what really needs to be answered is the public policy question of whether the potential harms of poker are worth the freedom and whether they can’t be addressed better under a regulatory scheme. There are plenty of inconsistencies in gambling law now that don’t seem to bother poker’s opponents, and it doesn’t seem to me that they actually care all that much whether or not it’s a game of chance.”

From the Desk of the Poker Philosopher (04/25/07)

Official Harvard Law’s Poker Wiki