I think his primary reasoning is the solutions use limited bet-sizing abstractions, which ultimately generate straight-up wrong conclusions for the most part. Also, it seems like a lot of people are just spinning their wheels with the solvers and not learning in a fashion which actually accelerates/develops their understanding of how the game works.

OR (conspiracy theory #1)

In an effort to promote Upswing, he's pushing people away from solver-use which is quickly becoming a primary form of poker coaching. I doubt this is the case tho, as he literally says all the time that Upswing is not geared for midstakes+ players.

OR (conspiracy theory #2)

His mythical HUNL dream machine doesn't agree with PIO.

I'm sure that something to this effect has already been posted elsewhere but I want to say that I talked to Alix Martin and he denied having given Ben any particularly advanced software. So the dream machine maker is someone else.

Ok so let´s assume I make a coaching for coaching agreement with one of the best PLO players in the game (e.g. a Ben86). Let´s say I keep up my end of the deal and then ...

All jokes inside, I really agree with your previous posts and really admire your writing style. The structure of your argumentation and your use of analogies (I loved the restaurant owner analogy) is really impressive.
You should seriously consider writing a book, I´d love to read it independent from the actual topic.

Think it's pretty safe to say that you can't run a plo solver realtime yet. Even NL solvers aren't able to solve real time unless its super shallow.

But pio developer has stated that PLO solvers are already possible, but just more heavier than NL ones, for obvious reasons. So instead of solving turn spot in 30sec, it would take like few hours, flop instead of 15 min, more like 12hours etc, he stated something like this a while back.

You can't run ours although it's pretty close if you get really big machine. The thing is that there are better programmers than us out there and not being focused on a public project where your time is split mainly between making it more user friendly, adding features, dealing with support instead of working on performance allows you to squeeze a lot more.

I still stand by it. I think it's possible way faster btw it's just not easy

I think he is an honest guy with an honest opinion and I like him from how he handled himself during Claudico match. I also think he shouldn't venture a strong opinion about a subject he is not an expert on, especially if it that negative towards us. One day one of those solvers will come for his money and the only interesting question is going to be how long it takes for him to stop playing.

So you think it's already possible to have real time softwares at NL?

I can use my $100 CPU to solve rivers in an instant and turns in a minute with publicly available software.

Now think about how much faster it can be done by someone who has access to private programmers and a server.

Plottwist: solvers are ultimatively good for poker

Cant make that **** up

No and here's why.....

If you have a great poker mind, you have money from poker.

If you have money from poker, you can hire 3rd world country developer.

If you have 3rd world developer and great poker mind you can make dream machine.

Obviously it's not that simple but you get the point.

A lot of people don't have access to a lot of different things, welcome to life.

Yup, stud is looking better and better these days. The problem with having everyone play FR stud all day is obvious: they have to play FR stud all day
(Yes, I know stud is a great game but it isn't exactly the high drama of NLHE)

I think at some point the professional community needs to dream up and popularize some new variants involving multiple game mechanics (door cards, variable pot size, >52 card deck, drawing/discards, different hand values, 4+ streets, variable rules) with an eye to creating poker games that don't just push back the solvers for a few years, but which reward human ingenuity for decades.

bang bang

fyp

Hey punter11235,

Since we have you ITT sharing your insight on game theory... What's your take on game "complexity" (I know, it's a vague definition) between NLH and PLO? A lot of people are advocating that PLO has more of a future, because of more hand combinations. (E.g. Danmerr's theory, that if Ben would have PLO dream machine, he would have NLH dream machine as well, because it's an easier game to solve.)

I posted recently on Joey's topic in response to Lefort, why I don't think that increasing number of hand combinations is necessarily a good way to approximate game complexity. (See here http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...l#post50523361 - and one post below that) Obviously examining entire game tree should expand when increasing hand combinations, but is it always necessary to calculate that to make a bot that's nearly impossible to beat? (Besides for a full Nash equilibrium solution) Thoughts?

isnt it interesting that the whole community seems to be excited about all these solving programs and the evolution torwards it. the next thing will be everyone crying about why poker has gotten so hard to beat, followed by questions about unsolved games that can be played for money just before the circle repeats itself. this is something i find really weird and contradicting. i wonder if in any other business, knowledge is spread so freely as it is in poker.

PLO is about 200x bigger if you want to brute-force but my view is that there are many shortcuts and it's only matter of time for solvers working on Macbooks to be available.
The main factors delaying progress are that there aren't that many people working on it, those that work on it often have different things taking their time and that there is little sharing of ideas going on between groups who could potentially tackle it.

I agree with your post in general. There are many details/shortcuts to be discovered and sooner or later someone comes and does the work. If that happens as a public or private project remains to be seen. I would guess private is more likely as there is big overhead when running a public project and if you just want to get there as fast as possible it's way more efficient to do a private one.
Private projects aren't something you can openly brag about (put on resume for the future) and there are often ethical problems attached (even if you just develop AI you know someone is using it as online aid which is not the most comfortable situation to be in for many people) but on the other hand they are likely way more profitable (a lot of humans with big egos willing to donate if you get there). I don't regret going with a public one as we are doing very decently and I mostly enjoy my work but if we went with a private one we would have something way more advanced by now.

Been out of online poker for a while ,aren't all these programs against TOS?(HUDs , solvers etc)

Increasing the number of hands should only increase the solution time in linear proportion to the number of hands.

So if a solver can insta-solve NLHE rivers on the assumption that we know hand ranges going into the river, then with linearly proportionally more power it will be the same for any game where we can assume we know the ranges going into the last round of betting. In fact, a "7th street solver" for 7CS (3 unknown cards per player) should be the next easiest thing to make.

In terms of practical play - I don't see how you "insta" type in all the hands both players could get to the river with even in NLHE - and if you are good enough to know that why do you need to play with a solver open?

The real threat is calculated ranges from earlier in the game. That's why the line of defence needs to be making the whole game tree bigger exponentially - 7CS obviously achieves this by having more public cards but for a lot of players it's very different to what they know already. Perhaps an adaptation for NLHE could be to have a stud river, i.e. instead of the community river each player is dealt a face-up river card - this would make solving turns much more difficult because of the greater number of branches in the tree - but players would at least feel they were playing a game they basically knew and they wouldn't have to memorize dead cards. Maybe the turn should be "stud" as well.

Is online poker still a thing? I invite all online "pros" to put the laptop down and join us at an actual poker table with actual human beings and play poker the way it was meant to be played. Honestly, these aspergery/autistic types are drawing dead at an actual poker game with opponents that under stand psychology.

lol, have you missed the last 10 years?

Thats why i dont play live

That cuts both ways. Do you understand the psychology of "these aspergery/autistic types"?

montyburns confirmed recreational player

I've been harping on about coming up with new variants for years.

I think the problem is that it needs to be done by the people who collect rake, not the players. But they are too short sited.

Live players know psychology, us autistics know... basic poker theory.

Just wait till the russians get tbe dream machine

I think you're missing the point that fish don't play poker for a mathematical or computing challenge.

How do you think this thread looks like to a recreational player?

There will never be a poker boom online again unfortunately due to this progression. Online poker as we know it will only ever decline.