I'm surprised no poker site has launched a site that specifically geared towards algorithmic players. Seems like the kind of thing that might have a niche.
It seems so. However, notice that the average poker bot programmer is a 20-something, highly intelligent hacker and that most of them don't have all that much money. Why do they write poker bots? (a) to make money. (b) to beat the system. (c) boredom.
(a) doesn't work when all the other players are also good poker bots. Botting lives from the simple fact that most poker players are shit. (b) also doesn't apply, for obvious reasons. So, now you are left with the (c)s. Those will leave when they find something more interesting.
Seemed to be a good idea. Well, it's probably not.
(PS: There are poker bot competitions. The bigger ones have university teams competing, the smaller ones (the ones I found via Google) usually don't get enough entrants.)
"Good" players, including bot writers want, and need, very bad players in the games. The games need players who either don't know or don't care that they're making sub-optimal plays. That's what makes the money flow in poker. If everyone played perfectly, then only the house would win.
Huh. I'm reading over the docs right now, and while I don't see anything about actually playing the game, they expose an interface for betting on hands. That's pretty interesting.
> At its heart, the Annual Computer Poker Competition aims to benefit artificial intelligence by promoting, aiding, and evaluating research in the challenging problems presented by the wide variety of poker games.
