Man Faces Machine In Poker Tourney

Published: Friday, April 20, 2007 Online-Casinos.com

ALL AT SEA AS MAN FACES MACHINE IN A POKER TOURNEY WITH A DIFFERENCE

Cruising the Caribbean and playing poker on a laptop make a strange fit

In their quest for unique and eye-catching online poker tournaments, organisers have arranged some of the richest and most entertaining events around, featuring poker aces who are themselves major attractions. This week a truly unusual competition was announced that will see man pitted against AI machine in a Caribbean cruise setting.

Picture a seven day cruise from Miami aboard the luxurious Carnival Cruise Lines ship "Valor." Now add serious poker talent playing Fixed-Limit, Pot-Limit and No-Limit Hold'em contests, with the players gathered together in the same space and using laptops backed by a live digital poker server, all within a closed local area network.

Now comes the essential ingredient - some of the players will be human.... and others will be pokerbots with advanced AI.

Branded the "Official Pokerbot World Championship," the event starts September 23 when (human) players from around the globe board the "Valor" and set sail for the Caribbean islands of the Bahamas, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. The action will start almost immediately international waters are reached, with various entry fee tournaments - from $10 satellites all the way to a whopping $10 000 main event. Winners will be paid from each respective prize pool (we're not quite sure how that works for the bots!).

When the "Valor" returns to Miami seven days later the world will know whether man or machine has triumphed as the 2007 Pokerbot World Champion. Full details on this unusual championship can be found at Pokerbot.com