NOTE FROM KIM:

Six poker-playing computer programs from around
the world will meet in Las Vegas on July 12 for
a showdown. The winning program will then
challenge the human champion of the 2005 World
Series of Poker to a man-versus-machine duel.

The Top 8 Surprises at the
World Series of Poker Robots

8> Advertisers furious when the entire tournament is completed in 6.84 nanoseconds.

7> Scandal erupts when one of the players is found to have an extra ace of clubs stored in its memory cache.

6> Five out of six machines were unaffected by the topless dealer.

5> Windows-based programs keep trying to play Solitaire with their cards.

4> Jose Canseco stuns crowd by accusing Canadian robot of juicing with an overclocked microprocessor.

3> The first bot eliminated turns out to be Gary Coleman in an R2-D2 disguise.

2> In a confusing turn of events, “The Deuce” takes a chip lead over “Jokernaught” when his pawn takes knight three.

and the Number 1 Surprise at the World Series of Poker Robots…

1> Thanks to loopholes in both the betting rules and the firewalls, 75% of the state of Nevada is now owned by a Sun E25K running Red Hat Linux.

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Credits:

Selected from 43 submissions from 15 contributors.
This week’s list authors are:

Bill Livingston, Decatur, AL — 1, 7
Shawn McWhorter, St. Paul, MN — 2
Marshall Gatten, Glendale, CA — 3
Barry Wallace, Knoxville, TN — 4
Allen Evans, Cedar Rapids, IA — 5
Peter Casper, Brisbane, Australia — 6
Chuck Burke, Phoenix, NY — 8
Kim Moser, New York, NY — List Moderator, Topic