Variation: WPT Enters Chinese Market with First National Poker Tour

“WPT is honoured to be the marketing partner chosen by the CLSAC for the China National Traktor Poker Tour,” said Steve Lipscomb, CEO of WPT Enterprises. “Poker, especially Tuo La Ji Poker, requires a great amount of skill and passion, both key ingredients in creating dynamic and engaging sports television. We look forward to applying our expertise revolutionising televised Poker in the United States to help bring this exciting Sport to Chinese television for the first time.”

Gaming Intelligence Group (08/07/07)

Legal: World Series Proves Poker Game Of Skill

“The final table of the World Series of Poker’s main event shows, once again, that poker tournaments are games of skill.

Courts have developed tests over the last couple of hundred years to determine whether a particular game is predominantly chance or skill. If courts and prosecutors were honest in applying these tests, at least no-limit Texas hold’em tournaments would have to be considered skill contests and not gambling.

Computer: Poker hotshots narrowly defeat bluffing computer

“After two thousand hands and countless “flops”, “rivers”, and “turns”, two elite poker players have narrowly defeated a formidable computer opponent. The result means that, while chess world champions have fallen to computers, humans still hold sway in poker, a game where psychology plays a huge role.

Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Ali Eslami took on Polaris, software developed by researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada, in a set-up designed to reduce the role that luck normally plays in a game of poker.

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.

Computers: Poker pros to challenge computer in mind-vs.-metal match

“If you think reading the poker faces of your buddies on Texas Hold’em night is tough, try calling the bluff of an opponent with no face at all.

A $50,000 showdown between a poker-playing computer and two of the world’s sharpest poker players will take place on Monday in Vancouver, and it’s anybody’s guess who will take the pot.

Press Release: Poker Academy to Supply Software Platform for the First $50,000 Man Versus Machine Texas Holdem Poker Championship

“Poker Academy, the premier source for quality poker software (http://www.poker-academy.com), today announced it will supply the technological platform for the first $50,000 Man Versus Machine Texas Holdem Poker Championship, which will take place in Vancouver, Canada, in conjunction with the annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), July 23 and 24 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Vancouver, B.C.

The $50,000 Man-Machine Texas Holdem Poker Championship will pit a poker-playing computer program developed at the University of Alberta against two top-level poker professionals in a controlled scientific experiment with real money on the line. Polaris, the reigning world champion computer poker program, will challenge Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Ali Eslami…”

Poker Academy (07/18/07)

Top poker players test skill against computer (Canada)

“University of Alberta researchers are betting their poker-playing computer program will beat two of the sharpest human professional players in the world and they’re not bluffing — yet.

The developers of the Polaris program have challenged Phil (The Unabomber) Laak and Ali Eslami to 2,000 hands of Texas hold ’em.

The $50,000 man-versus-machine poker match will not only be fun, it will help test advances in artificial intelligence, said Jonathan Schaeffer, leader of the computer science team that created Polaris.”

The Hamilton Spectator (06/11/07)

Press Release: Man Versus Machine – PokerBot World Championship on the High Seas

“HixoxiH Software, parent company for Pokerbot.com, is about to change the poker-playing field. It is scheduled to host the first-ever, live digital real money Texas Hold’em tournament – akin to the World Series of Poker – on a Carnival Eastern Caribbean Cruise – September 23-30.

Throughout history, there has been a long tradition of how poker is played. Pokerbot.com (www.pokerbot.com) is excited to tap these uncharted waters and to offer a poker-playing venue to the public that is not only unique, but safe, reliable and honest.

“This event will be the first time in poker history that pokerbots can play in a live, human tournament with real money entry fees and cash prizes,” Ray E. Bornert, II, owner of HixoxiH Software, said. “With online tournaments, it’s not possible to prove that a human or pokerbot was unassisted. But with live digital, it’s possible…”

HixoxiH Software (05/01/07)

Event: Man Vs. Machine – 2007 PokerBot World Championship

“In the fall of 2007, for the first time in history, Texas Hold’Em players, from all over the world, will travel to Miami Florida and board the Carnival cruise ship Valor, where they will compete for 7 days in the same room using laptops and a live digital poker server all contained within a closed local area network. Some of the players will be humans. Some of the players will be bots. They will pay an entry fee just as they would for any other tournament – live or online. The winners will be paid from the prize pool of the entry fees for their event and the winner of winners will receive a trophy ring and the official title 2007 Pokerbot World Champion.”

PokerBot.com