The First Man-Machine
Poker Championship

News Archive

  • July 26, 2007 - Some post match coverage including a story from the New York Times has been added to the Press page.

  • July 25, 2007 - There is a video of Phil and Ali making some comments at the end of session. We've posted it in both the Press and Results page.

  • July 25, 2007 - We're going to try get this page up to date with post-match press, complete game logs, and official final results as soon as possible. Due to some technical glitches, the scores on the results page are incorrect (but not enough to change the end score). More photos, some post-game video and analysis will soon follow. If you're looking for the live updates blog, go through the Results section.

  • July 24, 2007 -One of the spectators posted a youtube video of the introduction to the man machine poker match. A link to that video is now up on the Press page.

  • July 23, 2007 - Session 2 just finished, and Polaris pulled out a rather convincing victory! Phil had some really great cards in the public room, but Ali had a real tough time playing the other side of the cards. Session 3 runs on Tuesday at Noon.

  • July 23, 2007 - Polaris pulls out a draw in the first match. It won by 7 small bets, but anything less than 25 small bets is considered a draw.

  • July 23, 2007 - The match is less than an hour away from starting! Ali will play the first match in the public room with Phil starting in the private room.

  • July 23, 2007 - PokerListings.com, The Guardian (UK), and Independent Online (South Africa) have picked up the news story about the upcoming match. Read about it in the Press page. The match is just hours away!

  • July 22, 2007 - PokerNews.com also has a news story about the upcoming match. Read about it in the Press page. The first session is Tomorrow! Today there will be a press conference at 1:00pm to discuss the upcoming match with the media. Both Ali and Phil have arrived and have settled into their hotel rooms.

  • July 21, 2007 - The Associated Press (New York) has published an excellent article by Matt Crenson. Go to the Press page to read it!

  • July 21, 2007 - Poker Academy, providers of the host poker software for the Man-Machine match, and the University of Alberta are pleased to announce Polaris will be available for play online to Poker Academy customers sometime after the match. For more information please view the Poker Academy Man-Machine page.

  • July 20, 2007 - The Press page has a new story from the Vancouver Province, and an older article from NetworkWorld.com

  • July 18, 2007 - The FAQ page was updated with a few questions. Less than a week before the match begins! Stay tuned for more details.

  • June 28, 2007 - A photo of Ali Eslami has been added to the Competitors page.

  • June 25, 2007 - We apologize for the site's downtime over the weekend. The University had a planned power outage over the weekend, and the server didn't come back up until today. Everything should work now.

  • June 15, 2007 - Congratulations to Phil Laak on his strong showing in the World Series of Poker $5000 No Limit Hold'em tournament (Event #22). Phil finished in 11th place (out of 640 entrants), just missing the final table.

  • June 13, 2007 - A photo of the members of the University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group has been added to the Competitors page.

  • June 11, 2007 - The official press release announcing the match is now available on the Press page. A great deal of media attention has been generated for this event. Some of these articles are also linked to on the Press page.

  • June 11, 2007 - Ali Eslami led for most of the day, and had the chip lead going in to the final table of the $2500 H.O.R.S.E event. He lost the lead when his QQ turned out to be up against both AA and KK. He went card-dead after that, finishing in fifth place. The blow-by-blow action is available at Poker News.

  • June 10, 2007 - News from the World Series of Poker: In the $2500 H.O.R.S.E tournament (Event #16), 20 players are now left. Going in to the final day of play, the chip leader is none other than Ali Eslami! The tournament set a WSoP single-day record with 382 entrants, including the who's-who of the poker world.