“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.
“We were just a couple of guys messing around and having fun with the program,” Mr. Cordes said of him and his partner, Teppo Salonen.”
But the two-man team proved to be a winning combination with their “poker robot” beating out teams of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Alberta and other academic institutions. The pair attributed their program’s success due to a conservative style of play, some well-timed bluffing and their competitors’ lack of programming creativity.
“Most of the other competitors, being universities from around the world, were possibly focusing on producing scientific results and research in the process instead of just focusing winning the competition,” said Mr. Salonen.
The Claremont Courier (08/29/07)
Poker: The Skill Game 
Contrary to the misleading information in the article above, BluffBot is created by an individual developer. For more information, visit: http://www.bluffbot.com