In the latest chapter of “man versus machine,” poker pro Paul Watson came out on top after playing ChatGPT in a heads-up match at Club 52 in Florida. The advanced artificial intelligence (AI) language model showed an understanding of the game of poker, but ultimately lost $117 to Watson.

Euell Smith, the dealer in the game, said he was excited about what he saw. Talking about ChatGPT’s solid performance, he said: “The possibilities for AI in the future are limitless, and I can’t wait to see where it leads.”

ChatGPT started to repeatedly say that it was unable to play poker

Event organizer James Robinson explained that the computer was able to understand the cards it was dealt and knew that it was playing a poker game. It gave instructions to either fold, check, call, raise, or go all-in. After about an hour, though, ChatGPT started to repeatedly say that it was unable to play poker, so the game came to an end.

The computer system didn’t have any prior preparation. Robinson is confident that additional prep will make for a more competitive game in the future. It looks like Watson is already on board for a rematch in May.