I catch up with poker coach Alvin Lau, who first joined the Zoo on episode 6. Since then, Alvin has been busily becoming a compelling content creator, but most recently has been examining the database of Pluribus hands. We talk about the result, Pluribus’ overall strategy, what a few of those who had success against the computer were doing, what we can learn from the experiment, and examine two of its hands versus Mr. Blue.
We conclude with some hints about his follow up to Overnight Monster, Alvin’s course on GTO NL strategy.
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Alvin is an impressive analytical thinker. I’d like to chime in on his response to the question of how humans will fare against the computers – “we die”. My response applies to live poker, admitting that online poker will likely evolve into a -EV venture for humans gambling without a mini-Pluribus on their HUD (and even then – is it just 0 EV?)
1- Humans at a live table will never get close to the abilities of a computer to create multiple balanced ranges and bet sizes. GTO oriented players at high stakes will get close, but there will always be skill differences even between them; like between Chess grandmasters.
2- The live game will never create a large enough sample size to smooth out the variance of GTO play, hence humans will continue to play hoping for short term positive EV.
3- Multiway GTO responses assume that all other players are playing optimally, and if they are not, there are exploits available. Humans may be better at identifying and implementing those exploits than a future Pluribus will – until such time as computers can quantify emotions, physical tells, etc.
So all in all, I feel the live game is not fundamentally threatened. What may happen is that weak players will be more quickly destroyed, as would happen if I challenged a chess master, as the unranked occasional dabbler.
Fair enough – for now!
… And my point (3) is probably altogether moot since cardrooms and home games won’t allow computers (or phones) to be on during hands.