Kurt Lange, the CEO of Poker Academy, the company behind the poker software products Poker Academy Prospector and Poker Academy Professional, feels his company offers the poker world the best software to teach people how to win at poker. The reason is the lineage of computing that has gone into all of his products.
For several decades, the computer science department at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada, has dedicated substantial resources to writing programs that could beat humans at games. A wing of that game department has been writing and rewriting programs to "solve" poker. That is, these computer geniuses have been obsessed with building a computer that could always beat a human competitor.
As a direct offshoot of this research department, Poker Academy not only has all of those years of research at its disposal, but, oftentimes, former students end up working for the company to build programs to help make the poker geeks among us better players. The pedigree line behind the products is matched by no one, Lange says. University of Alberta researchers have been working on "the poker problem" for the past 15 years. Poker Academy is also located in Alberta.
Lange says the players who would benefit most from his products are those who are willing to work at the game.
"There's so much meat and substance and power behind the software that people who are going to put in an active effort to really improve their game are going to get a lot more reward out of it than the causal player," said Lange.
It's powerful stuff. The artificial intelligence behind the software is the same as that which tied Phil Laak into knots last month during a "Man vs. Machine" poker exhibition that took place at the Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence conference. The day after the event, people were able to go online and play the actual software that was used.
"Statistically, we have put more research in the AI development than anyone else," Lange said. "One of the key things is that it's being developed by people who are really passionate about poker. There's really no one in the company that doesn't play poker on a regular basis."
These researchers want to become better players, but they are in the position to write software that could help them. And it's available to all of us.
CardPlayer.com will take a closer look at the software and the company in the next two weeks. Stay tuned to the site to learn more about the products.
