A demonstration of the Polaris poker system

Abstract

Poker games provide a useful testbed for modern Artificial Intelligence techniques. Unlike many classical game domains such as chess and checkers, poker includes elements of imperfect information, stochastic events, and one or more adversarial agents to interact with. Furthermore, in poker it is possible to win or lose by varying degrees. Therefore, it can be advantageous to adapt ones' strategy to exploit a weak opponent. A poker agent must address these challenges, acting in uncertain environments and exploiting other agents, in order to be highly successful. Arguably, poker games more closely resemble many real world problems than games with perfect information. In this brief paper, we outline Polaris, a Texas Hold'em poker program. Polaris recently defeated top human professionals at the Man vs. Machine Poker Championship and it is currently the reigning AAAI Computer Poker Competition winner in the limit equilibrium and no-limit events.