Crave

(Credit: HardGaming)

If inventors of high-tech gaming tables would only apply their formidable skills in other areas, the world would surely be a better place. Recently there have been some ingenious creations to automate parlor games, whether they deal cards or shuffle mahjong tiles.

Now there's a fully digital poker table that makes the deck of cards (as well as their dealers) obsolete. The "X10 Ten Player Automated Table" can accommodate up to 10 players in the tournament staple of Texas Hold 'Em, each with his or her own 12-inch touch screen and a 27-inch LCD in the center where the flops, turns, and rivers will show as community cards alongside the chip totals. The hands are kept private, BornRich explains, because players can "peel" the corners of their cards to take a peek.

It's a much broader version of the two-person "Heads-Up Challenge" we cited a few weeks back, combined with the concept of other multiple-player systems except they're all at the same table. If you're hosting the game, however, you'd better win some monster hands because you'll need them to pay the $29,950 price.

(Credit: Chip Chick)

Let Bill Gates have his TouchWall. You can still be the envy of your friends with the "Heads-Up Challenge" digital poker table.

Unlike the "iDealer" or its mahjong counterpart, this one truly brings the game of champions into the Digital Age by using a large touch screen to shuffle, deal, calculate odds, and pay the winner. And get this: It will even let you peel up the cards, according to Chip Chick.

Unfortunately it can handle only two players--hence the name, which refers to a one-on-one game. But it certainly beats that other wireless poker game, hands down.

(Credit: Coolest-Gadgets)

Just days after the lazy host's cooler made itself known, the perfect companion for it has surfaced for indoor recreation. Actually, make that the "iDeal" companion.

That's the trite i-moniker of this robotic poker dealer found on Coolest-
Gadgets and the WPC888.com poker site, the most Crave-worthy piece of card-playing equipment we've seen since the "Tech Shuffler." Truth be told, it's not just something borne only from chronic indolence: Among strangers the iDeal would presumably assuage concerns of dealing from the bottom of the deck; and among friends, it would come in handy as motor skills around the table are compromised as the night wears on. It can be programmed to deal various card games, taking aim with infrared sensors to target bicycle reflectors placed around the table.

The only disappointment is that it apparently doesn't flip the cards over. But we suppose we could handle that taxing physical exertion in the name of good sportsmanship.

(Credit: Shuffle Tech)

The poker boom has given rise to a variety of related gadgetry, ranging from poker-chip flash drives to wireless on-screen games. But there's a staple of the card table that's been surprisingly ignored: the automatic shuffler.

Shuffle Tech is trying to capitalize on this egregious oversight with a state-of-the-art version that promises to speed the whole process so you can lose your money as fast as possible. It has two options, one with three riffles (45 seconds) and the other with seven (90 seconds), which is certainly faster than most poker buddies are capable of, especially after several Heinekens. The shuffler also has a translucent lid in case its operator is accused of rigging the machine.

The only problem--and it's a big one--is that it costs $480, according to BornRich. Which certainly puts it out of the range of any house games we've encountered.

Enigma in the Wine Cellar is a freeware adventure game for Palm that saves you cash.

(Credit: Palm Addicts)

You've got to applaud mobile carriers for knowing how to make a buck. Additional text-messaging and data-transfer services are one way to pad the bill for basic calling, and capitalizing on your boredom and curiosity is another. It's common for cell phone carriers such as Sprint and Verizon to lease games in addition to or instead of selling them. But fees add up, and you still won't own them.

1) Instead, go for game packs such as Hot Games Pack for Palm and Mastersoft Games Pack for Windows Mobile, which generally cut you a bulk deal. Rather than paying $5 to $15 for one game, a pack might net you 10 games for $40.... Read more

In a poker contest of man vs. machine, the results are in. Humans-2. Polaris-1. (And one draw.)

On Tuesday night, Phil Laak and Ali Esmali, two professional poker players, faced off against a computer program called Polaris, which was developed over 26 years at the University of Alberta. The contest, held at the American Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) conference in Vancouver, Canada, was one of the first scientific poker contests involving real players.

In the end, Polaris beat Laak and Esmali in the first match of 500 hands; tied the second match; then lost the last two rounds. Laak and Esmali walked away with almost $20,000 each, including a $5,000 honorarium for playing in the scientific game.

"It was very challenging and a far more sophisticated bot than what they put out before," Esmali, 30, said in an interview. "Previous versions were much more exploitable and you could adjust your strategy and beat it. (Polaris) used a much more varied strategy."

Esmali, a resident of Los Angeles, said that the play wasn't about the money for him or Laak, but rather about helping advance the field of AI. "It's the implication in society that this technology can be applied to like collaborative problems. That's what's so exciting is being at the beginning of this adventure."

For Jonathan Schaeffer, professor in the department of computing science at the University of Alberta and who's been working on Polaris since 1991, the game was also a win for his team.

"This is the first time any computer program has won a match against a strong human player, and from our point of view, that's a huge milestone for us and AI," said Schaeffer. "But we have a long way to go to beat the best in the world."

The consolation prize for Schaeffer's 12-person team was that Polaris won the Second World Computer Poker Championship, in which as many as 18 computer programs played each other over weeks. The results were announced Wednesday at the AAAI conference.

The University of Alberta team chose to work on an AI program for poker, rather than chess, because it's a game of imperfect information, just like life, Schaeffer said. That means that a player can't know what cards his or her opponents are holding, making the game one of luck and skill.

The man vs. machine poker contest was designed to eliminate the luck factor by dealing the same cards in each hand, but in reverse. So in one hand, Laak might get lucky with two aces, but in the other room Esmali would be unlucky as the computer was dealt two aces. To finalize a winner, officials added the two human scores and two computer scores separately, and the highest number won.

Even though the University of Alberta team lost, they can take heart that it was no easy task for Laak and Esmali.

Esmali said that the game wasn't like professional poker online, when he can typically watch TV or eat some food while playing. "This required really intense focus to play at the level to beat this bot."

(Credit: Hammacher Schlemmer)

We're all about poker here at Crave, and we could go on obnoxiously about how we've been stacking chips years before today's bandwagon jumpers knew the difference between a bluff and a blind. That's why we're none too pleased by products like the "Wireless Multi-Player Poker Game"--not only because it degrades the hallowed traditions of Texas Hold 'Em ("the game of champions"), but it's just ridiculously unnecessary.

So far as we can tell, this basically replaces a perfectly good deck of cards with six handheld controllers that wirelessly transmit images to a TV screen while keeping track of pots and winnings. In other words, it ends up making your real-life game look like online poker, even though you and your buddies are all physically there. Are we missing something here?

(Credit: Engadget)

With USB storage keys ranging from the ridiculous to the obnoxious, we were beginning to think that it was impossible to find one that we'd even consider buying. But leave it to a game of chance to restore what little faith we had in product marketing.

Memorex's "Poker Chip Flash Drive" is a bit late to the poker party that's become a national craze, but it makes up for much of that with an admirable design that conceals its 1GB key in what looks like a stack of three clay chips. In keeping with the theme, Engadget says, the USB drive includes "software to play Texas Hold 'Em right from your PC." If it arrives on schedule at Target this month, we'll go all in.