Doug Polk: The Fight For Humanity

As I wrote just a day or two ago, the humans were taking one hell of a beating from Libratus, the Carnegie Mellon University heads-up poker software, and even a visit in the final few days from Doug ‘WCGRider’ Polk couldn’t turn the match around – the human quartet losing an astonishing $1,766, 250 over the course of 120,000 hands.

Of the four flesh-and-blood challengers to machine-dominance – Dong Kim, Jason Les, Jimmy Chou and Daniel McAulay – only Kim could claim to have kept his silicon-attacker at bay, a loss of $85,649 almost $200K better than his nearest rival McAulay, despite the support of ‘Coach Doug’ – who had participated in last year’s excellent win against Claudico.

Libratus, however, was variously described as ‘a beast’ and ‘unstoppable’, as it learned from its mistakes and overnight plugged gaps in its game while simultaneously devised new ways to take advantage of any sloppy or inaccurate play by its human foes.

Polk’s first YouTube offering a few days ago saw him interviewing the players at the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh in an attempt to understand just why the machine was crushing them so harshly.

"The wheels came off the wagon”, is how Les describes things, having started badly and then pulled themselves together. “It wasn’t that our play fell apart in my opinion…I think we’ve seen a clear improvement in the AI strategy day-to-day.”

“How good is the bot?” Polk asks Daniel McAulay, the Scottish pro who did reasonably well against the machine, losing only $277,657 over the 20-day challenge.

“I’m genuinely impressed!” states McAulay, unable to pick up on any real flaws in the bot’s ‘reasoning’ or play. The full video is worth watching if you hope to help in the fight for humanity.

OK, so Polk with his serious hat on is great to watch because he’s one of the best players in the world himself, but when ‘Coach Doug’ entered the fray a couple of days later, we saw the comedian side of Polk to the fore…

“I’m disappointed…in humanity’s attempts to beat this bot…and I’m not going to stand around here and let us lose to some nerds over at that university!” says Polk in his hilarious parody, the four under-pressure players joining in on the joke.

The humans may be down big in the Brains vs AI Challenge, but that was before unleashing their secret weapon... https://t.co/cesIVw0h5gpic.twitter.com/47nMfJM9t2

— gN Coach Doug (DougPolkPoker) January 30, 2017

“There are only two kinds of coaches,” says Polk. “Coaches that really care about their players…and coaches that win!” sending Les off on a lap of the casino as punishment for his bad play. Not so funny, perhaps, as Les performed the worst of all – the machine skinning him for $880,087, or over $7 per hand!

The ‘whiteboard tactics talk’ is a must-watch skit, Les again coming in for abuse and being sent to the bench! With Les and Polk being long-time buddies it’s obviously all done in the name of humor – and it works, laugh-out-loud comedy being in short-supply in the poker world, so enjoy it while you can.

Switching off the lights to help them ‘feel’ the cards is ‘Coach Doug’s’ next less-than-bright idea, and doubtless if poker team coaches existed there would be one exactly as bad as Polk’s parody version. Perhaps a GPL fly-on-the-wall documentary would reveal just such a coach?

His team-talk was uplifting, if a little eccentric, telling his quartet:

"You guys are contractually obliged to go out there and get punched in the face repeatedly… just like Ronda Rousey!” A stirring speech if ever there was one in the history of sport! You guys are like Rocky in… Rocky Balboa!” says Polk. “You’re too old, you’re outgunned, nobody thinks you can win… but you still get into that ring and make another movie because… you need the money!”

All good, clean fun from Polk and Co, and although it didn’t prevent the eventual hammering they took at the hands of Libratus, it adds an element of lightness to a situation that players of chess, Go and many other games have been through already – the machines are coming and nothing, absolutely nothing will stop them. Except, perhaps, for ‘Coach Doug’?

The full Human vs AI results: