Pluribus instead uses an approach which lacks strong theoretical guarantees, but nevertheless appears to work well empirically at defeating human players.

In AI, two-player zero-sum games (such as heads-up hold'em) are usually won by approximating a Nash equilibrium strategy however, this approach does not work for games with three or more players. The base strategy was computed in eight days, and at market rates would cost about $144 to produce, much smaller than contemporary superhuman game-playing milestones such as AlphaZero. Pluribus relies on offline self-play to build a base strategy, but then continues to learn in real-time during its online play.

Īccording to the Pluribus creators, 'Developing a superhuman AI for multiplayer poker was the widely recognized main remaining milestone' in computer poker prior to Pluribus. Pluribus plays the poker variation no-limit Texas hold 'em and is 'the first bot to beat humans in a complex multiplayer competition'. Pluribus is a computer poker player using artificial intelligence built by Facebook's AI Lab and Carnegie Mellon University.