Computer Algorithm Can Never Lose Money Playing Poker

Scientists have created a computer algorithm than can play a perfect game of Texas hold 'em poker.

The Daily Mail reports that the computer operates on an algorithm that envisions every single possible combination of cards in a game of poker. In playing and winning the perfect game the computer processed 24 trillion possible card combinations per second for two months.

The computer can't win every single hand because of the luck of the draw, but because it is so good at processing the possible card combinations, the computer will never lose so much money that it ends up in the red.

The algorithm the computer runs on was developed at Canada's University of Edmonton by a team led by Michael Bowling. Bowling says the strategy of processing every possible hand is impossible for the human mind to handle. This is because the amount of information required to imagine every possible hands is roughly 1,000 times larger than the entirety of the information stored on Wikipedia.

The success of the algorithm marks a milestone in the development of artificial intelligence. This is because while computers have mastered games like chess and checkers, they have not been able to master games where all of the events that previously happened were unknown.

For example, in chess, every previous move by both players can be seen and recorded. In card games like poker, the computer does not know what cards have left the deck during a given hand. This makes imagining all the possible scenarios for a hand that much more difficult.

The scientific success has implications far beyond leisure and gaming. The algorithm's success at predicting possibilities even without knowing all of the information in games like poker means that future algorithms will be able to make more accurate predictions in other areas like security.