ChatGPT: Can it be a Tool for Poker?

With artificial intelligence having such a major influence in our day to day lives, its no surprise that Google introduced ChatGPT. This tool has been trending all over the world and its’ impact is massive. AI has been around poker for years though with poker bots regularly used online. Research suggests that they’re unlikely to win at higher stakes due to the games’ complexity but at lower stakes and for rakeback purposes, they can make money.  But what about the ChatGPT tool, can this help poker players win online? That’s what I intend to answer in this article.

Testing ChatGPT for poker

To answer the question  “can ChatGPT help me win at poker?” I had to test out the software. I thought it best to ask some simple questions first to gauge its knowledge. So I asked whether it knew the rules. See the response below:

ChatGPT gave a pretty decent breakdown of the rules. I liked that it used the correct poker terminology for the community cards and bracketed them. The bullet style points in order of chronology is helpful too.

 So, for beginners learning the rules, ChatGPT is a quick and easy tool to use and can help players grasp the basics.

I did notice they made no reference to the actual hand rankings order though. This critical to understanding the rules and a glaring miss. Whilst text is relatively helpful though, the lack of visuals is a drawback. My poker cheat sheet details the rules with some tips and advice and is far more valuable to a beginner as they can actually see the hand rankings.

Testing ChatGPT with a poker hand

After testing it with the rules, I decided we need to challenge it with a situation. Learning the rules of poker from AI is one thing, but can it actually use contextual information to give sound poker advice? I was very interested to see what response I’d get if I asked it a moderately interesting poker scenario.  So I asked it a situation where you’re holding a suited ace in a deep stacked cash game.

Check the question and response below:

As you can see, I gave some pretty good context. I wanted to see whether stack depths, positional awareness or player tendencies would impact its answer. Sadly, I was disappointed. Whilst ChatGPT wrote a lot of text, there wasn’t much substance. It didn’t reference the fact we have excellent implied odds and that our hand plays well in this spot. It also contradicted itself by reconfirming the high 3 bet percentage but assigning a strong range. 

On the plus side, I was pleased to see it use pot odds and compute that in percentage for us. I also like it presented us with an opportunity to 4 bet.

What are the disadvantages to using ChatGPT for poker?

From the few tests I did, the software does just like to parrot information back to you. This isn’t especially helpful as I know I’m a LAG or the opponent is a TAG, saying it back to us isn’t valuable and is almost writing text for the sake of it. Therefore, you need to watch out for repeated words.

It also seems to lack intermediate to advanced knowledge of poker strategy. The fact it paid no attention to our stacks was concerning to me.

Conclusion

ChatGPT and AI in general will be used for online poker in the future.  The younger generations will be using it, and some already are. However, I’m not convinced that it can help you actually win consistently. You have to remember that ChatGPT is scouring all resources online to provide an answer to poker questions. Unfortunately, the majority of poker content online is poor quality. The high quality poker resources like my site are in the minority with many sites old and offering obsolete tips that aren’t helpful in the modern era. The high quality poker content is vastly outweighed by the poor and is AI smart enough to distinguish? I’m not so sure.

For beginners wanting to get into poker though, it’s awesome. You can get quick and easy answers to basic questions and even learn a bit of maths. It’s quicker than buying books or searching through forums to get answers so it can save beginners time and money.

Therefore, if you’re new to poker and reading my post, go ahead and use ChatGPT for poker. For the rest of you, you’ll still have to put in the work by playing and studying. Sorry!