It’s only solved mathematically, but that’s not the interesting part of poker to me, the interesting part is the psychology of it. You communicate through your bets, posture and posture at the table, as well as when you show vs hide folded hands. The actual statistics are only interesting when trying to decide whether someone is bluffing or playing “optimally.” And I don’t think you can solve “bluffing” either, because just knowing the theory behind bluffing changes how and when you bluff.
So yeah, exploiting tells and other non-book actions makes poker interesting to watch at the higher levels.
None of that relates to Balatro at all. There are no stakes, no bluffing, etc. How you play a given hand is a lot less interesting than how you construct your deck. It doesn’t play like poker at all, it plays like Slay the Spire w/ a poker theme.
And I don’t think you can solve “bluffing” either, because just knowing the theory behind bluffing changes how and when you bluff.
Any theory, to have any impact, must change how you act.
You can’t get an edge over someone playing game-theoretic optimal bluffing strategy in poker. The best you can do is exploit what I mentioned – information leaks, or try to find someone who isn’t playing an optimal strategy and exploit that. But if poker player X is playing according to what von Neumann would advise, they have a bluffing approach where, no matter the strategy you adopt, you will not tend to come out ahead in the long run. The best you can do is equal them. They can tell you that that’s their strategy, say “I went and read up on game theory, and here’s how I’m playing”, and it still won’t permit you to do so.
Now, that’s a conservative strategy. Minimax relies on the assumption that the other player will play optimally, given the information available to them. A “von Neumann” player won’t necessarily exploit weaknesses that someone else has as strongly as some other strategy might. So, let’s say that a player absolutely never folds, for example. It’s possible to adopt some non-von-Neumann strategy that permits a player to “win more” against a player playing suboptimally…though a von-Neumann player would still be winning as well. It just means that no other player in poker can get an advantage, over the long run, over someone playing what von Neumann would recommend.
None of that relates to Balatro at all.
I agree — bluffing is outside its scope. Balatro’s similarities are to video poker, not traditional, multiplayer poker (and the real gameplay is in the deckbuilding aspect).
You can’t get an edge over someone playing game-theoretic optimal bluffing strategy in poker.
These types of “solved games” make some pretty hefty assumptions, such as limiting possible actions. But that can only really happen with online poker, when you do it live, you introduce a ton of variance that a good player can exploit.
Algorithms may have “solved” a game, but that doesn’t mean a human has. It’s the same idea with a game like chess, where we’ve developed essentially “perfect” computers that can compute every possible board state from a given point onward and give you an optimal move, which will give you the best possible outcome. Does that make chess uninteresting? No. At the highest levels, it’s less a strategy or tactical game and more psychological. The idea is to surprise your opponent and play something they aren’t prepared for which gets them into time trouble figuring out your plans, and the clock becomes a piece you can use against them. So the prep for a game is studying their past games and guessing what they might be preparing against you, and preparing something they won’t expect to use against them.
When dealing with humans, there will always be weaknesses to exploit, and that’s interesting. So the game of live poker remains interesting.
It’s the same idea with a game like chess, where we’ve developed essentially “perfect” computers that can compute every possible board state from a given point onward and give you an optimal move
Chess isn’t solved: chess computers have outplayed the best current human players, but they can’t always provide an optimal move, can’t look down branches far enough. Although they do use Minimax!
But it is similar to the extent that you can get not-perfectly-optimal play that will probably do better than a human.
When dealing with humans, there will always be weaknesses to exploit
After the first 10 moves or so, they can. There’s something like 9 billion possible chess positions after that point, and opening theory is well established, so it’s largely solved. Computers can calculate something like 100 moves deep (and nearly all branches), though they do use heuristic to eliminate unlikely branches.
There are some interesting games between top bots because of that heuristic, but any of the top bots will consistently beat a human because they can compute orders of magnitude more possible game states.
So it’s essentially solved, meaning that, in practice, a top AI will pretty much always beat or draw a top player. The difference in rating between a top bot and the top human player is something like the difference between a GM and someone aiming for IM, and we expect a similar performance difference.
It’s only solved mathematically, but that’s not the interesting part of poker to me, the interesting part is the psychology of it. You communicate through your bets, posture and posture at the table, as well as when you show vs hide folded hands. The actual statistics are only interesting when trying to decide whether someone is bluffing or playing “optimally.” And I don’t think you can solve “bluffing” either, because just knowing the theory behind bluffing changes how and when you bluff.
So yeah, exploiting tells and other non-book actions makes poker interesting to watch at the higher levels.
None of that relates to Balatro at all. There are no stakes, no bluffing, etc. How you play a given hand is a lot less interesting than how you construct your deck. It doesn’t play like poker at all, it plays like Slay the Spire w/ a poker theme.
Any theory, to have any impact, must change how you act.
You can’t get an edge over someone playing game-theoretic optimal bluffing strategy in poker. The best you can do is exploit what I mentioned – information leaks, or try to find someone who isn’t playing an optimal strategy and exploit that. But if poker player X is playing according to what von Neumann would advise, they have a bluffing approach where, no matter the strategy you adopt, you will not tend to come out ahead in the long run. The best you can do is equal them. They can tell you that that’s their strategy, say “I went and read up on game theory, and here’s how I’m playing”, and it still won’t permit you to do so.
Now, that’s a conservative strategy. Minimax relies on the assumption that the other player will play optimally, given the information available to them. A “von Neumann” player won’t necessarily exploit weaknesses that someone else has as strongly as some other strategy might. So, let’s say that a player absolutely never folds, for example. It’s possible to adopt some non-von-Neumann strategy that permits a player to “win more” against a player playing suboptimally…though a von-Neumann player would still be winning as well. It just means that no other player in poker can get an advantage, over the long run, over someone playing what von Neumann would recommend.
I agree — bluffing is outside its scope. Balatro’s similarities are to video poker, not traditional, multiplayer poker (and the real gameplay is in the deckbuilding aspect).
These types of “solved games” make some pretty hefty assumptions, such as limiting possible actions. But that can only really happen with online poker, when you do it live, you introduce a ton of variance that a good player can exploit.
Algorithms may have “solved” a game, but that doesn’t mean a human has. It’s the same idea with a game like chess, where we’ve developed essentially “perfect” computers that can compute every possible board state from a given point onward and give you an optimal move, which will give you the best possible outcome. Does that make chess uninteresting? No. At the highest levels, it’s less a strategy or tactical game and more psychological. The idea is to surprise your opponent and play something they aren’t prepared for which gets them into time trouble figuring out your plans, and the clock becomes a piece you can use against them. So the prep for a game is studying their past games and guessing what they might be preparing against you, and preparing something they won’t expect to use against them.
When dealing with humans, there will always be weaknesses to exploit, and that’s interesting. So the game of live poker remains interesting.
Chess isn’t solved: chess computers have outplayed the best current human players, but they can’t always provide an optimal move, can’t look down branches far enough. Although they do use Minimax!
But it is similar to the extent that you can get not-perfectly-optimal play that will probably do better than a human.
That’s probably true.
After the first 10 moves or so, they can. There’s something like 9 billion possible chess positions after that point, and opening theory is well established, so it’s largely solved. Computers can calculate something like 100 moves deep (and nearly all branches), though they do use heuristic to eliminate unlikely branches.
There are some interesting games between top bots because of that heuristic, but any of the top bots will consistently beat a human because they can compute orders of magnitude more possible game states.
So it’s essentially solved, meaning that, in practice, a top AI will pretty much always beat or draw a top player. The difference in rating between a top bot and the top human player is something like the difference between a GM and someone aiming for IM, and we expect a similar performance difference.