My husband Ron, was a great poker player. Besides betting on horses, poker was his favorite thing to do. (Actually, working was his favorite thing to do, but poker and racing were his favorite hobbies.)
Rona had a group of friends that he played poker with weekly for many years. The stakes weren't really high, but he could win or lose a few hundred dollars in an evening. In the mid 1980's he met some new poker players that played for really high stakes. They included Michael Chow (Chow's Restaurant), Dick Van Patten, Vince Van Patten, and Michael Berk (Baywatch executive producer). For a while they played in the back room of Chow's Restaurant in Westwood. The stakes were high, probably too high for Ron, but he held his own and loved it. Then, the game moved to our guesthouse in Brentwood. Every week 8-9 players would come over for a night of bridge. I'm not sure why the game broke up, but it eventually did. Many thousands of dollars could change hands in an evening. I was glad when it ended.
When we moved to North San Diego, Ron was unable to find a good home game, so he started playing at Oceans 11, and often Pala or Harrah's. The games were for smaller stakes than he had been playing in before, but he just loved the game and the challenge.
I wonder if he would recognize Texas Hold'Em today. Artificial Intelligence has changed the game of poker forever. Old time professionals say that AI killed the soul of the game. What old timers learned through trial and error in thousands of hands of poker, younger players learn by AI. Algorithms don't lie. They can tell the player when to hold'em and when to fold'em. It takes longer for the computer to figure out bluffing, or the psychology of the game, but they are figuring it out. Experts think that in the near future a robot will win the World Series of Poker. Already, bots are beating professional players. It's just another example of how AI is changing our world. Is it for the better?
No comments:
Post a Comment