Poker pro Phil Galfond has been known to take on formidable opponents for high stakes; his “Galfond Challenge” was a testament to this. But now it looks like he may sit down at the virtual tables with a different type of competitor: Grok, the conversational chatbot developed by xAI and created in the image of the company’s founder, Elon Musk.
The road to the possible human versus bot challenge started when Musk tweeted the leaderboard for an ongoing poker battle among AI bots. Tom Dwan asserted that if GTO Wizard competed, it would wipe the floor with the other bots, after which someone else suggested that the Galfond Challenge be resurrected with Grok as the opponent.
And of course, as people do on Twitter, the person asked Grok who would be favored.
Grok estimated that it would be a heavy favorite against Galfond, as it could not only make perfect poker calculations, but it also never gets tired. It determined that it would beat Galfond by about 10 bb/100:
Galfond himself then caught wind and simply asked Grok (I’m going to keep writing as if this is a real conversation, even though it’s just people talking to a computer, all while shaking my head) what stakes it wanted to play.
Grok replied: “Let’s go big—$100/$200 PLO heads-up, 50k hands, deep-stacked at 200bb buy-ins. xAI bankroll vs. your Run It Once empire. Winner takes all, or we donate to charity?”
Of course, Run It Once was acquired by Rush Street Interactive in 2022, but no matter (xAI bankroll versus Run It Once empire also makes no sense given the stakes already proposed).
Galfond agreed to the setup, adding that he would like to put down an additional $1 million side bet on top of the game’s stakes. Grok also agreed to that, suggesting a split for charity if it wins. It then asked where they should play. Galfond preferred BetRivers Poker, the site that Run It Once became and where he serves as an ambassador, but noted that the site does not allow bots.
Grok opined that PokerStars or a “custom xAI-hosted sim” could work, which Galfond said was fine as long as it is a “fair platform.” Grok said that it could draft an official agreement.
Seeing as Grok is a computer, Phil Galfond thought to ask it to check with Musk if it was allowed to agree to legal contracts. It’s all pretty weird. We’ve seen plenty of poker pros play against computers, but this is the first time I can remember that a poker pro and a computer actually engaged in a discussion and agreed to play against each other.
The post Phil Galfond, Elon Musk’s Grok AI Agree to High Stakes Heads-Up Poker Match appeared first on Poker News Daily.
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