Don't bet against the poker 'robots'

LAS VEGAS — Perhaps one day soon, the automatic card-playing programs known as robots will rule the poker world, dominating this most human of battles as computers have already conquered chess and backgammon.

But not today. Not on Phil Laak's watch.

Late Friday night at Binion's Gambling Hall, an old-fashioned casino in the old-fashioned part of Las Vegas, the poker champion drew a line in the felt.

Buoyed by a cheering crowd ("Hu-mans! Hu-mans!"), Laak topped a pair of kings with his own pair of aces and held on to win the last hand in a three-hour exhibition match with PokerProbot, a sophisticated program written by a 37-year-old car salesman from Indiana.

Laak let out a whoop and accepted congratulations from the audience, $100 from a side bet with his opponent's owner and a hug from girlfriend Jennifer Tilly, the actress who last month won the $158,000 top prize in a major women's poker tourney. "You don't want the human player to be obsolete," Tilly said.

Still, the unprecedented spectacle left Laak, 33, more relieved than proud, and the predominant feeling among the pro players and fans watching was that he had merely staved off the inevitable. The human monopoly on trickery and deceit had never appeared so fragile.

"In three to five years, they're going to win," said Kenneth "The Clone" Jones, a poker pro and sometime software engineer who said he has played against a dozen underground robots.

For most players, the display at Binion's made clear, the day of reckoning could be now.

It took more than 300 hands for Laak to put away PokerProbot. He emerged with deepened respect for the program and its rival "bots," which include five it defeated in an earlier three-day contest for $100,000 and the right to take a shot at the delegate from humanity.

"It would for sure make money online," Laak -- known as "the Unabomber" for hiding his emotions behind sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt -- said of PokerProbot. At least in the simpler versions of Texas hold 'em with betting limits, "bots are better than the average person."

The programs pose no imminent threat to live games at casinos and card clubs, which generally bar technological aids. But online poker, which has exploded in popularity, is another matter.

PokerProbot is one of many bots already winning surreptitiously on Internet card sites based offshore.