The Lithuanian National Match Poker Team, represented by Sportinio pokerio klubas “Du Karaliai”, comprises of:

Skirmantas Tomkevičius – the President of National Federation of Poker of Lithuania.


Mantas Urbonas

Poker professional from Panevėžys, now resides in Vilnius. Mantas is also the owner and manager of the football team Top Kicker’s. He started playing poker 10 years ago, and his best achievement is last year’s 4th place at Battle of Malta winning 120,000 EUR. Ranks 31st in Lithuania by live earnings. Mantas was born on 1987/06/22 and he is the youngest member of the team.


Erikas Zukas

He is the youngest member of the national team, eager to learn and understand other players – once Erikas has won a tournament without even looking at his own cards!


Laimutis Kalvelis

He was born on 1970/06/26. He is pretty successful in federation tournaments and has won two of them since 2012. Works as a CEO in a company taking care of houses in the city. Was born and lives in Vilnius.


Diana Dvelienė

She was born 1976/11/09 in Kaunas. She lives there and together with her husband, who is also a poker player in the federation, runs their own plants growing business. Does not play often in any live tournaments, but if she does, finishes in the money.


Arūnas Valentavičius

He was born on 1975/09/25 and is a retired solder of the Lithuanian army. Plays only in federation tournaments.


Dainius Ulkė

He was born in Biržai, but since early days lives in Vilnius, works in IT sector since 1994. One of the most stable players in the federation.


Qualification structure was the following

Top 6 players of each year from 2013-2018 of the national federation’s annual rankings were able to play in the qualification tournaments to get into the national team. Three tournaments were held (6-max, Turbo, Deep Freeze-out) to determine 6 or 7 winners. Two tournaments were won by Mindaugas Jonuškis and one by Mantas Urbonas. The tournaments took two days to complete and the national team was created.

Pluribus!

The Latin translation corresponds to “with several” I would say. Addressed here specifically is the poker game against several opponents probably. A regular poker set up: No Limit Texas Holdem at a table of six. A fortress of human decision-making power now attacked by the algorithm “pluribus”. And as we learned – since July 11th, 2019 – “it” was victorious.

After Chess and Go, we are now inferior in the perhaps most complex classic mental exercise of artificial intelligence as “genius human”.

What a insult.

What a development!

How can this be classified or understood in a nutshell?

After the great victory of Deep Blue over Garry Kasparov in 1996, the immense ambition to create better chess machines than world chess champions gave way to the vision of making computers successful on the free market. Chess is caught on his board. There are limits of all kinds. The field. The figures. The moves. All truth, every information, is open in itself. It’s “only” a question, who can see how comprehensively, judge and decide accordingly?

It’s completely different in poker. Poker is much more human than chess. “Doing the wrong thing, but at the right moment” turns a good one into an excellent poker player.

How should a machine even understand the meaning of this deep quote from the movie “Cincinnati Kid”? With pitfalls like these developers were challenged worldwide – and now it is solved.

It took place step by step.

In the spring of 2011, my colleague Stefan Rapp and I competed against the “Fat Tony” program, led by Prof. Dr. Fürnkranz at the University of Darmstadt. The software was coded for “Limit Poker 1vs1”. The match was set up by mirrored cards, meaning that team computer was faced with the same decisions as the human team.

Stefan and I won back then. Although Fat Tony had a much, much easier setup than pluribus today.

Tony never had to decide how high – but only if it bets. This is a huge difference. Because zero or one is the core of computers, but to make an offer creatively, that’s something human! On top of that Tony had the advantage of a duel one-on-one, with no heated, irrational interaction between different opponents at the same time. “Man on man” is way easier to categorize than a wild marketplace, where offers sometimes simply are made due to a personal reaction from a third party.

Human poker players beat a whopping 15 years after Deep Blue its poker playing colleagues in their home game by human judgment. I was pretty sure that it would remain that way for a long time. Just eight years later, however, I am disproved. Pluribus has taken all hurdles. How was that possible?

By Darwinism.

Pluribus – in contrast to its even very considerable predecessors – did not learn from humans playing poker.

The “newborn little Pluribus” was just presented the complete set of rules including the aim of the game. From there on, the program was on its own. Pluribus played and played against versions of himself. In a few days it had billions of hands of experience. Being a massive looser against virtually every amateur player during his first billions of gambling decisions, it now beats everything and everyone by virtue of his constant learning process.

It should give us some encouragement.: Getting up again and again as an improved version of himself – this pays off apparently.

Of course, it is also frightening: Where is all this leading to, if machines even play poker better than we do?

Mathematic as the language of logic is – as so often – the winner.

We should realize that, accept that and start building up reasonably for the future on this basis.

Most important is your own attitude to consciousness and consequence.

Let us be aware of what mathematics can do and, consequently, let’s be curious about it.

If it were still valid today to say that mathematicians are sitting only in their own ivory towers anyway, then it would also be correct to say: The world simply is an ivory tower.

About the author: Stephan Kalhamer

Stephan Kalhamer is a mathematician and successful poker coach. In 2011 he led the German team to the title of world champion and in 2013 to the EM title of amateur. In addition, since 2009 he is honorary president of the German Poker Federation and author of several books on the subject of “poker”. He acts as a speaker and advises companies.

The original article was written in German by Stephan and published here – http://summa.stiftungrechnen.de/pluribus/

Estonian National Match Poker Team

The Estonian national team that will participate in the Match Poker European Nations Cup, to be held in Ukraine, will consist of the same individuals who competed in this sporting format also in 2012-2013. Back then, they won the preliminary round of the European Nations Cup and achieved fifth place at the European Championships in Cyprus. Despite their great tournament experience, all members of the Estonian teams are still amateur players!


Henri Käsper

One of Estonia’s best known poker players whose earnings from live tournaments exceed half a million dollars and who can boast with four individual Estonian champion titles. As a successful public relations manager, he has taken poker into the media, shaped its reputation, and engaged thousands of new players. At the table, Henri’s main virtues are his vast experience and the ability to read his opponents.


Laur Sibold

Wonderful player, characterised by his good sense of humour as well as bold actions even in the most difficult situations. Although Laur is mainly known as a showman and event organiser, he has also become Estonian poker champion and won tens of thousands of Euros at live tournaments. We could also let you in on the secret that he is quite the expert in heads-up and the short-handed game. Mostly, he joins the table to enjoy good vibes and nice company.


Herli Olop

One of this decade’s most valued poker persons in Estonia, active in both the OlyBet poker room and the games portal Jokker.ee. This means that he knows poker through and through as a player (he is also a two times poker champion of Estonia) and as an organiser. In poker, Herli values both good company and interesting game situations. At the table, he does not ask for too much attention but could always make it quite far!


Marko Kolk

Mathematician who has stood out not only in poker, but also in other thinking games. For several years, nothing could be heard of this colourful old-timer… Until in 2016, he won two tournaments in one night at the Estonian championships of online poker and, naturally, also won the Player of the Year title at the championships. Marko is sneaky and a bit unusual, he is not easy to read.


Kelly Limonova

Entrepreneur, living in Spain, who became one of Estonia’s brightest poker stars at the beginning of this decade. Her success and the title of the female player of the year 2011 was achieved thanks to her “unwomanly” – aggressive, fierce and daring – playing style which made Kelly an uncomfortable opponent to all of her competitors. Kelly actively plays poker also today and her tirelessness, patriotism and sociability make this woman one of the pillars of the Estonian national team.


Katti Järvsoo

Tough athlete who enjoys competing and participates in tournaments with great passion and enthusiasm. It is her great will to win that has allowed her to become a strong poker player and no matter how difficult the situation is, she will not give up! Katti has been successful on several different tournaments, she has also become the Estonian champion and won the title of the Estonian Female Player of the Year.


Marek Reinaas

President of the Estonian Tournament Poker Federation since 2010. He is a successful businessman who is known in Estonia also as a columnist, presenter, and politician. As Marek is amazing at communication and has a good intellectual sense of humour, whatever he says or writes always gets lots of attention. Tournament poker is one of Marek’s many hobbies and presumably he is strongest as a team player.


The national team’s support person is Tanel Reisi, board member of the ETPF, who has been one of the main leaders of Estonian poker in the recent years. Tanel will not be playing at the Match Poker European Nations Cup but he shall be observing everything from behind the scenes, helping our players as he can, and also shaking hands with the other competitors, as a sign of good will.