The First Ever Man vs. Machine Poker Championship is now over and Man prevailed. Polaris and the team from the University of Alberta had a great showing, giving team poker pros Phil Laak and Ali Eslami everything they could handle. Eslami summed up the grueling matches, "I wouldn't wish this on anyone."

The Man Machine Event held July 23-34 during the AAAI Conference in Vancouver was a four-session competition pitting a team of two pro poker players against the University of Alberta's advanced poker bot Polaris. The game was $10/$20 Limit Heads Up Texas Holdem with a duplicate reverse match system. That is, the same cards were dealt in both games, but the human and bot was reversed. The match was conducted on the Poker Academy platform.

Hot on the heels of its solid showing at the First Ever Man vs. Machine Poker Championships, Polaris is now live on Poker Academy Online, challenging the world in ultimate heads up competition. Winners will receive a free copy of Poker Academy's latest product, Prospector - the next generation of poker analysis.

Full event hand histories, including fully disclosed hands from Phil Laak and Ali Eslami, are available for download. Players can even import the Laak/Eslami stats, as well as their own, into Poker Academy Prospector to see how they stack up against the pros.

Poker Academy Pro 2 customers are welcome to challenge Polaris in one of the special heads up rooms for PAX (play money). Those without Poker Academy Pro can download the demo and check out the action first hand.