# Interesting article in Science concerning AI and NLHE 6 max online play. **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 12, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-article-in-science-concerning-ai-and-nlhe-6-max-online-play/836990 "2019-07-12T23:04:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-article-in-science-concerning-ai-and-nlhe-6-max-online-play/836990/1 "2019-07-12T23:04:24Z")
An AI bot is good enough now to regularly beat experts in 6-handed No Limit Texas Hold 'Em, per this new article in [Science](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/07/10/science.aay2400). Results: > [@](#): > > For the 10,000 hands played, Pluribus beat the humans by an average of 32 mbb/game (with a standard error of 15 mbb/game). Pluribus was determined to be profitable with a p-value of 0.014. (Darren Elias was behind Pluribus by 40 mbb/game with a standard error of 22 mbb/game and a p-value of 0.033, and Chris Ferguson was behind Pluribus by 25 mbb/game with a standard error of 20 mbb/game and a p-value of 0.107. Ferguson’s lower loss rate may be a consequence of variance, skill, and/or the fact that he used a more conservative strategy that was biased toward folding in unfamiliar difficult situations. Yes, it beat that Chris Ferguson. Strange way of expressing winrate, though I guess it’s the norm in AI game research. If I’m reading it right, it won at 32/1000 X 100 games, or 3.2 bb/100. [Which is pretty decent](https://www.microgrinder.com/poker-strategy-articles/introduction-to-win-rates/). ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2019, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-article-in-science-concerning-ai-and-nlhe-6-max-online-play/836990/2 "2019-07-13T00:33:00Z")
There is very, very little that humans do that an AI will not be able to do better. In fact, there may be nothing that humans do that an AI will not be able to do better. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-article-in-science-concerning-ai-and-nlhe-6-max-online-play/836990/3 "2019-07-13T22:04:26Z")
The article I read said the AI would have been making about a thousand dollars an hour with that win-rate. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2019, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-article-in-science-concerning-ai-and-nlhe-6-max-online-play/836990/4 "2019-07-13T22:49:31Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > The article I read said the AI would have been making about a thousand dollars an hour with that win-rate. Well, that would depend on the stakes they were playing. This needs SenorBeef or another poster whose name escape me (gadarene, I think), but both of whom have claimed to have made a living for a few years playing online poker. Absent them, this site claims 90 hands an hour is a decent expectation when playing 6 max. [How Many Hands Per Hour in Online Poker? Here's the Numbers | BlackRain79 - Elite Poker Strategy](https://www.blackrain79.com/2018/08/hands-per-hour-online-poker.html) 90 hands an hour × 3.2 bb per 100 hands is ~2.9 ish bb per hour. Play 500/1000, and that’s 30 bucks an hour, assuming no multitabling. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2019, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-article-in-science-concerning-ai-and-nlhe-6-max-online-play/836990/5 "2019-07-13T22:59:02Z")
Hey GG, I think **Turble** is one of our resident poker experts. His last post was a few weeks ago. NFM ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-article-in-science-concerning-ai-and-nlhe-6-max-online-play/836990/6 "2019-07-13T23:34:23Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > Hey GG, > > I think **Turble** is one of our resident poker experts. > > His last post was a few weeks ago. > > NFM NJ Yeah, that’s right. Can’t believe I forgot him. Liked reading about his knowledge of casinos and gaming. Isn’t GreenHell or something like that a card room dealer? Anyway, imagine if you could 8 or 12 table with that kind of expectation? It’d just about make up for the rake, LOL. ---
**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2019, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-article-in-science-concerning-ai-and-nlhe-6-max-online-play/836990/7 "2019-07-14T14:53:20Z")
I played poker for a living for several years when I lived in Las Vegas. In those days there were probably only a couple hundred people in the world who could actually earn a living as a full time poker player while there were a significant number who were able to be winning players at low stakes games but who couldn’t win enough to earn a living. Think it was 1998 or 1999 when online poker first started. I was intrigued with the concept. I lost my first buy-in of two or three hundred dollars in a $2/4 game to see what the games were like. A nice thing about on-line poker is that you have the stats of every hand you played available. I looked over the stats, found the weaknesses in the players, and pretty quickly ended up leaving the tough live games of Las Vegas to live in the mountains and take the easy money from the clueless players while on-line poker mushroomed. I earned a good living on-line until the American government shut down on-line poker (I think that was 2010??) I took a look at the state of current live poker games and decided to retire. I don’t really have any info on the current state of the game. While I played all games I really hated No Limit and didn’t much care for tournaments or short-handed games – my main game was $10/20 Hold ‘em playing four games at a time.