Poker Pros to Face Off With Computer

July 22, 2007 By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer Poker Pros to Face Off With Computer (AP)

Phil Laak plays in the World Series of Poker at the Rio hotel and casino in Las Vegas, in this July 30, 2006 file photo. Laak and partner, Ali Eslami, are scheduled to challenge a computer in the world's first scientific poker showdown between man and machine a two-day contest in Vancouver, Canada, beginning July 23, 2007. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

(AP) -- Poker champion Phil Laak has a good chance of winning when he sits down this week to play 2,000 hands of Texas Hold'em - against a computer. It may be the last chance he gets. Computers have gotten a lot better at poker in recent years; they're good enough now to challenge top professionals like Laak, who won the World Poker Tour invitational in 2004. But it's only a matter of time before the machines take a commanding lead in the war for poker supremacy.

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