AI Takes Vegas: Poker's New King and VR Training in Sports

Man, the outcome was nuts! Over 12 days and 10,000 hands, Pluribus played against a bunch of top-notch players and, get this, if it was betting with real $1 chips, it would've raked in about a grand per hour, Read Even more. The folks at Carnegie Mellon University and Facebook AI who built Pluribus, they must’ve been high-fiving like crazy!

What's bananas is this AI milestone: it's the first time an AI has schooled top players in a major multiplayer game with hidden info, like what cards you're holding. Bluffing? No sweat for Pluribus. One of the pros, Jason Les, was like, ""I'm fighting here for human supremacy in poker,"" but damn, he got steamrolled.

The same week we hear about Pluribus, there's this thing called TrackMan popping up in baseball. It's like a radar gun on steroids that can tell if a pitch is a strike or not. They tested it out in the Atlantic League All-Star game cnn. Sure, the human ump could still call the shots, but it's like you can hear the boots of tech marching into our sacred human spaces.

I got to chat with Demis Hassabis, the genius behind AlphaGo and AlphaChess, about all this tech taking over. He's not even sweating it. He told me, ""People think AI will rule the world and we'll be at their mercy, but that's just movie stuff. In the real world, I'm betting on humans and computers teaming up to work wonders for all of us.""

Now, there’s some fresh proof from Canada that Hassabis might be onto something. A study this month showed how virtual reality (VR) is upping the game for basketball players' decision-making. The researchers at Bishop's University were thinking, we already binge on game videos to get better, but can VR, which is way more intense, do even more?

They rounded up 27 varsity basketball hotshots and split them into three squads. One got to play with VR headsets, seeing a full-on 360 world that moved with them; another just watched playbacks; and the last group, well, they just caught some college ball on TV.

Before the experiment, they had these players hit the court to see how sharp their game-time decisions were. Then came four days in the lab, with the VR and video groups checking out the same 200 plays (some replays, some one-offs), while the control group just chilled with their regular b-ball footage.

Each time a clip ended, they'd be like, ""Quick, where would you move to help your team score?"" You had a second to choose a direction or stand your ground, and then they graded you on your choice.

After those four days, they put all 27 players back on the court with nine other players running plays. Just like in the lab, they had to quickly pick where to go to nail some points. Same deal – trained plays they knew, and untrained ones they hadn’t seen .

The results? Oh man, they were eye-opening. On the trained plays, VR and video groups totally outshone the control group. VR hit a nearly 80% accuracy, while the video was close behind, and the control group lagged at around 57%.

But here’s the kicker – when things went off-script with untrained plays, the VR players still killed it with almost 79% accuracy, leaving the video and control groups in the dust with about 60%.

Why did VR knock it out of the park? The smart cookies think it's 'cause that VR world looks and feels more like the real deal, so players get sucked right in. They're pretty sure that if you mix VR's kick-butt training with how easy it is to get your hands on the tech, we're looking at a shiny future for training athletes.

But hey, if you're dreaming of cashing in on online poker thanks to Pluribus, don't get your hopes up. The brainiac behind it, Tuomas Sandholm, has already called dibs on the tech for his companies – Strategic Machine Inc and Strategy Robot Inc. So, who knows what these machines are gonna dominate next, right?

My Ultimate Guide to Mastering Instagram Hashtags

Alright, let me tell you about this one time I decided to get all strategic with my Instagram posts. See, I'd been throwing up pics and hoping for the best, but it was like shouting into the void—barely an echo back. So, I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the world of hashtags. I mean, these little symbols are like magic keys to unlocking Insta success, and I was all in for getting that secret sauce.

First off, you've gotta mix it up with the popular and the niche hashtags. It's like hitting up a massive party and a cozy little get-together at the same time. You need the big, buzzing ones to get seen, but the smaller, more specific tags? That's where you'll find the folks who really get you.

Now, I'm not just talking about slapping any old hashtag onto your post. You gotta research, like a detective on a mission. It's all about finding the ones that are just the right fit for your pic and your tribe . And oh boy, when you hit that sweet spot, it's like watching your post light up like a Christmas tree!

Don't even get me started on the whole banned hashtags thing. It's like stepping on a landmine—BOOM—your post is practically invisible. I learned that the hard way. So now, I'm super cautious and make sure to double-check my tags before I let them go live.

Timing is a sneaky beast too. You've gotta be on your toes, ready to tag your posts when the world is most awake and buzzing on Insta. It’s like trying to jump onto a moving merry-go-round. But once you’re on, you’re in for a wild ride!