The following article appeared in Computing Canada , Vol. Knowing when to hold them. Computer science professor Jonathan Schaeffer and his team, who have been working for more than a year on the program they call Loki, are placing bets on someday competing in world-class poker games. They think Loki, named for the Norse god of chance, will become the Deep Blue of the green baize set. Although Schaeffer has perfected programs that beat the world checkers champ in 1994 and tied for first place in the World Computer Chess Championships, teaching a computer to play poker is a vastly more complicated undertaking.
Computers win because they can compute faster and more accurately than their human opponents.
But in poker, significant unknown factors exist. It's a game of egos and it's one of the ultimate con games. Schaeffer's team wants to develop a program that will allow a computer to adapt to its environment, factor in unknowns and devise strategies to win. World-class players study their opponents and attempt to identify their style and technique. Beyond poker, Schaeffer says a Loki-type program could be adapted to business and industrial applications where negotiation strategies need be derived from a plethora of imperfect information.