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The Poker Robot Olympics

The year is 2064 and the Olympics are being held in Tibet. Poker was officially admitted as an Olympic sport 16 years ago, but this is the first year robot players are allowed to compete in the games. Because so many robots were entered in the Poker events, the Olympic committee created a special class of events just for the robot players. Human players will have to compete against other human players, as usual. (This was probably wise, as 10 of the last 12 years robots have won the WSOP main event.)

The first few events were stud games and European robots won all of them. England took the gold in seven-card stud, and Holland took the gold in razz. But the real surprise was Greece taking the gold in the popular 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo Split 8 or Better event. Because this country’s currency had become worthless after the complete collapse of their economy in the early teens, this was the first time they could scrape up the buy-in for the Poker Olympics. Who would have thunk that they would produce a robot that could play well?

The No Limit Holdem event was won by the Australian robot which looked like a Kuala bear. He looked so ridiculous that he put the other poker robots on tilt. The silver was taken by the American robot which looked like a Terminator. This was surprising as well, because he was actually a security guard that had to stand in at the last moment (when the actual American robot player got injured by a mountain goat when attempting to climb to Tibet for the games).

That wasn’t the last of the Kuala bear robot from Australia. He took a bronze medal in the dealer’s choice event. He kept calling lowball games which seemed to help, until his last hand when he tried to snow with a pat full house hand. The Brazilian robot must have sniffed him out because he won the elimination hand with a 10-high.

However the real surprise was the main event. As you know the poker game Indian has surpassed No Limit Holdem as the most popular poker game in recent years and is now the main event at the WSOP as well. Robot poker players just are not very good at bluffing when they hold a deuce on their forehead. Just ask Canada, whose player froze up and had to be scrapped after realizing that he was seeing the wrong reflection in the Chinese robot's shiny front plate.

It sure looked like South Africa was going to win this event. However when they got down to three players the American terminator robot started dealing In Between and that was pretty much the end of the game. The South African player hit the post and had to double the pot twice, and then the American player took most of that money by potting it with a 5-J spread and hitting a 9. Next Olympics you can expect a new rule against In Between being dealt, at least until after the medals are awarded.