Watch AI models battle it out in Texas Hold'em poker. See how different LLMs bluff, bet, and compete.
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This is very cool, one piece of feedback: watching the table as the AI plays while seeing the reasoning is difficult as they're on other sides of the screen. It could be nice to have the reasoning show up next to the players as they make their moves.
By stevage 2026-01-1113:17 Yep, exactly. It's very difficult currently.
By nivekkevin 2026-01-1023:56 Idea: can the agents make faces? 1. Programmatically--agents see each other's faces, and they can make their own. They can choose to ignore, but at least make that an input to the decision making. 2. Display them in UI--I just want to see their faces instead next to their model code names :)
I used to play professionally, and I still play in the casinos.
These LLMs are playing better than most human players I encounter (low limits).
They're kinda bad, but not as criminally bad as the humans.
OK so you know how it goes in poker and I should probably read the literature ...
How much of a session is based on "reading players" vs "playing the odds"?
What I am getting at, is how different is poker than say roulette or blackjack? My initial thoughts are that poker such as TX hold 'em is not a game offered in a casino, so it must be mostly indeterminate. I imagine that the casino versions of poker are not TXHT.
By contrast, roulette is simply a game where the casino wins eventually with a fixed profit (thanks to 0 and a possible 00). That is all well documented.
I have only ever visited a casino once, 25 years ago, Plymouth, Devon as it turns out and I was advised to only take £50 in readies and bail out when it was gone. I came out £90 up, which was nice and my "advisor" came out £95 up (eventually, after being £200 down at one point). Sadly my "advisor" ended up bankrupt a year later.
So, how do you play a LLM? I would imagine that conversation is not allowed ...
By sejje 2026-01-110:35 They offer (real) poker at some casinos. It's standard NLHE usually 100-200bb max buyin, sometimes match the stack etc.
Most common game spread is 9-handed $200 max $1/$2 NLHE. It's exactly like the game on the link, except more players and lower stakes.
In the game, you try to win the money of the other 8 players, not of the casino. The casino takes a rake each hand, and a player with a large enough edge can overcome it. The edge might be you're excellent, or it might be they're terrible (or drunk). But the house gets paid to deal each hand.
In the long term, poker outcomes are determined by skill. In the short term, they're luck. In the medium term, both. Most people never reach the long term, it's a lot of hands.
There's also table games, similar to blackjack, that they call "three card poker" etc. These can't be beat, they favor the house. Standard table game, with a poker flavor. I've never played one of these.
By MichaelApproved 2026-01-110:39 I used to play A LOT at low and high levels.
At low levels, playing is ABC simple and mostly about following basic strategy for starting hands and pot adds for chasing. Don’t get fancy and keep your temperament steady and you’ll win.
To a slight degree, you can do better with reading players and identifying them in broad ways (wild, conservative, confused, etc.) but don’t let that allow you to get fancy. Stick to the basic fundamental strategy for hands, position, and pot odds to crush lower level games.
By firefax 2026-01-1114:48 >How much of a session is based on "reading players" vs "playing the odds"?
I think the key is you need to watch for a person's play style.
There's a two axis system: tight/agressive and passive/active.
An active player sees more flops, and an aggressive player will call and raise more than a tight player.
So a tight, aggressive player sees few flows but bets strongly when they have a good hand -- this is considered "good" strategy.
Others might play a "tight-passive" strategy -- they'll play few hands but fold easily. They won't lose large amounts of money but they'll slowly bleed chips.
A loose, aggeessive player is the type you want at the table -- they're making a lot of bets, and often bluffing, and you can sit and wait to catch them.
Now, this is "reading" someone, but it's not the Rounders style "oh he just ate an oreo so he's bluffing" level reading of a player that movies
For context, I'm an OK player. I can make a few hundred playing 1/3 per session -- I'm not in Vegas so I can't move to the next tier without sinking a lot of money on a flight and hotel.
If your goal is a bit of beer money, it can be a fun hobby, but I wouldn't go into it expecting it to become a full time career.
By furyofantares 2026-01-110:411 reply Hold'em is offered in casinos routinely, I'm not sure where else one even goes to play it aside from private games, but it is not against the casino. It's against other players, and the casino takes a percentage of the pot.
Others may differ and I am biased because 99% of my play has been online, but I'd say it's almost entirely playing the odds. Or at least, the popular romantic conception of looking for tells or whatever, is, I would expect, a really minimal edge compared to simply playing better.
You do learn the other players' tendencies and adapt accordingly, and table selection is very important, so in that sense it is very much about reading players.
A large part of my play was heads up where it's very much about understanding the other player's play as deeply as possible, and so if I wanted to be technically accurate about reading players vs playing the odds, I'd say both are very important. But if I'm answering someone who has the popular conception of what those phrases mean, I think saying "it's about playing the odds" would give them the more accurate picture.
You really want to be good at playing the odds, and you don't want to stray too far from fundamentally good play. If someone is learning how to play and I'm advising them, I'm teaching them all about playing the odds, and trying to get them to read players less. Only once they have a solid fundamental understanding of the odds would I teach them how to adjust.
By stevage 2026-01-1113:20 Around here (Melbourne) the other place is in pubs - there are organised poker tournaments. They can't legally charge you an entry fee, but they can give you a lot of extra chips if you buy a meal at the pub. Some modest prizes if you win.
They're kind of a ridiculous format - you typically start with about 20 BB but the blinds go up pretty quickly so you don't see a lot of post-flop play.
Somewhat entertaining.
By csa 2026-01-1118:33 > How much of a session is based on "reading players" vs "playing the odds"?
Several good answers here, but I will add my own take.
“Playing the odds” is basically playing good, fundamental poker. This is a baseline that most players will use when sitting down at a table of unknown players. This is often called a “balanced” strategy (note some people erroneously call this “GTO strategy, assuming the balance, which is not actually what GTO is).
“Reading players” is a thing, but it can be broken up into (at least) two categories: 1) physical tells, and 2) player habits.
Physical tells is not a big thing. Some people give off a lot of tells, but some folks are also decent (not good) at giving reverse tells. Honestly, you can be a wildly successful poker player while knowing nothing about physical tells.
(Side note: One of the most reliable tells is bet timing tells. This can sometimes even be a tell online, especially when people are taking shots at higher stakes or are deep in a tournament. It can also be faked, but some folks are super reliable with timing tells, and they don’t realize it.)
The second kind of tell is player tendencies — things like when players play too many hands or when they play too few (e.g., fold too often).
One very reliable way for good players to smooth out their earnings curve is figure out which players fold too often and in which spots. Once they’ve figured that out, they try to set up that spot and basically print low-risk (sometimes even no-risk) chips.
Taking advantage of these tendencies is called an “exploitative” strategy (as opposed to the “balanced” strategy mentioned above).
Really good players can take rec players on a journey through a series of emotions (and accompanying predictable gameplay) such that the good player can read the rec player like a book. The odds tip heavily in favor of the good player at this point.
Pro player and strong amateur players are so far ahead of recs in ways that the recs don’t even realize.
> My initial thoughts are that poker such as TX hold 'em is not a game offered in a casino
Why not? Because you think it's a game where the casino can lose?
If so it's not an issue, as casinos that provide poker take "fees" from the stakes. Like how stock exchanges work: there are people making or losing money from stock market, but exchanges are always making profit.
By ryandrake 2026-01-1115:35 Around where I live, about half the casinos offer poker and about half don't. Poker can be a pretty high cost to a casino. Compared to something like slot machines, it's financially mostly downside: You need a lot more physical space per player. You need more staff. In order for players to come and actually enjoy it, the poker room needs to be located in a relatively quiet corner, ideally enclosed so the buzz of the rest of the casino can't be heard, which is also expensive. And the game is slow, and rakes happen once per hand, so you're making money pretty slowly. And that's just for cash games. Tournaments are worse. If I had to guess, tournaments probably lose money for the casino, and they only exist to get players in so they play at the cash tables. Probably many other things that I'm forgetting because I don't run a casino.
By conception 2026-01-1119:44 Just an fyi they make apps like https://apps.apple.com/app/id1530767783 to train on betting based on expected value.Not the whole picture but trains the math side.
By bionsystem 2026-01-1114:522 reply I just watched for 5 min and no they don't play very well. Deepseek squeezed with K4o against CO open and BTN call with full stacks. Grok 3b AI with 25bb in the button with Q4s. Those are very far from optimal play which is well known since solvers. I wonder how they've been trained.
By sejje 2026-01-120:41 Considering a squeeze puts deepseek ahead of most human players. Maybe not an optimal squeeze, but most human players flat if they're going to play.
Grok's play is obviously bad, no solver needed. I wonder what he said in the "log" where you can see their thoughts. I guess he can hopelessly be trying to rep AA--again, I've seen worse thought processes every time I've ever played in a casino.
I really think GPT, at least, would win at a live casino. Possibly the other bots as well. The humans are that bad. Poker is complex.
By ryandrake 2026-01-1115:28 You and OP are agreeing: "Better than most human players" is quite possibly the lowest skill bar in (at least live) poker.
By projectyang 2026-01-118:252 reply I'm actually surprised at how well they play pre-flop (mostly). Did some initial analysis on VPIP/PFR across positions, and somewhat decent.
Post-flop on the other hand is all over the place...
By algo_trader 2026-01-1115:44 there plenty of published preflop charts and GTO ranges
in fact, a fun project would be take a non-reasoning model, play on a lesser known game format, and see if it learns an "a ha" moment or explicitly simulate moves ahead
By hydr0smok3 2026-01-110:524 reply lol what? I just watched Grok fold pocket jacks preflop, no raise/limps ahead.
By agentifysh 2026-01-117:48 On Pokerstars it is the right move because you are going to get beat by someone going all in with 72o or something
but seriously at lower stakes there is just no respect for the art its just a shock and awe strategy: throw shit up, break the game and use that demoralization to bully others.
By sschnei8 2026-01-112:07 There’s no good way to play pocket jiggities @bradowen
That's, in fact, a much smaller mistake than I see humans make every hour.
By sejje 2026-01-120:45 How many BBs do you think JJ is worth being dealt preflop? I suggest you confirm your guess.
How many times do you see an obvious nut hand get called on the river by someone to whom it isn't obvious, for hundreds of BBs? (Every single session, that's the answer)
One of these is such a huge mistake compared to the other.
By chews 2026-01-111:22 Grok knows that pocket Jacks are a fast way to go broke.
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