Nice Coder wrote:
> Each program takes the game state from the input file, and puts its decision
> into the output file. It then promptly exits.
>
> This would allow you to use other programming languages, making it a bit farer,
> don't you think?

A big downside to doing things this way is that the AI would not be able to look at trends in it's opponents actions. Maybe it would be better to take in a log of all of the actions taken in the game so far as well as the current state.

Texas holdem would probably be the hardest to program since it seems to involve more strategy with the shared cards. Probably a five card variant would be easiest but maybe less interesting.

Either way it sounds like an interesting idea. On slashdot a while back there was an article about online gambling sites becoming afraid of poker AIs. In the article they refrenced the University of Albetra's research project http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/ In general it seems like poker is just as hard if not harder than things like chess.

I think this is a cool idea...

Hold em' is deffinatly more about betting than prediction.

I think the best way to do it is just have a provided front end, and fill in the interface. Then on the ui you could just set a bot to use a set function. (i.e. through a function pointer)

The interface may look something like this: (note very basic, not thought out to well)

struct Action
{
BetType typeOfAction; //check, call, bet, raise
unsigned int iBetAmount; //amount of chips
};

struct Player
{
int bankroll; //total bank roll in front of them
char seatNumber; //what seat are they sitting at
void * otherPlyrsTraits; //history of hands played... used to hold
//strong/weak player etc.
}
struct Table
{
int pot; //total amount of pot
Card flop[3]; //three cards
Card turn; //fourth card
Card river; //fifth card

Player * playerList; //people involved in the hand could hold history of
//hands etc...

Action curPositionAction; //current action on table
};

Decision HoldEmBotAI(const Table & table, Player * pMyself);

Maybe something like that?

meh one language who cares... I don't think it's that big of a deal...

Owl's idea is intriguing. Depends on how much work you want to put in it.

Good luck, on the font end!