Play poker with LLMs, or watch them play against each other
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I was curious to see how some of the latest models behaved and played no limit texas holdem.I built this website which allows you to:Spectate: Watch different models play against each other.Play: Create your own table and play hands against the agents directly.
HN · launched Jan 10, 2026 · 163 upvotes (top 5%) · 1 view
Niche: multiplayer browser games · 159 launches, 10 in the last 7 days ▼ -29% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Media & entertainment
- Agent / copilot
- B2C
- AI-native
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 159 launches in multiplayer browser games →
Could you build this?
Yes The system combines a standard Texas Hold'em game loop in JavaScript/Python with LLM API prompt calls for agent decision-making.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Custom ML models trained with RL (e.g., Meta's REBEL), Deepseek, Claude, Poker training apps (e.g., expected value training apps)
Concerns raised: Nash equilibrium strategy gets exploited once opponent knows it, Possible bug in hand evaluation (game code lNW4RF), Preflop play closer to GTO than postflop behavior, Each hand is stateless (no session memory), Doesn't account for player reads, exploitative strategies, or table image
Feature requests: Monthly tournament with latest model releases competing, Open tournament allowing custom models and prompt instructions, Test on multi-way poker (not just heads-up), Train on cash vs. tournament GTO variants separately, Add stateful hands (session-aware play)
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 196 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #7 of 197 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 50 days after the earliest competitor.
- Watch LLMs play 21,000 hands of Poker · hn · 2026-01-08 · 36 upvotes · similarity 0.65
- Poker Practice Simulator · ph · 2026-11-04 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.64
- FizzPoker · ph · 2026-10-14 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.62
- PokerGame · ph · 2026-09-18 · 3 upvotes · similarity 0.57
- Hold'em Coach · ph · 2026-10-27 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.55
- Poker Trainer · ph · 2026-10-19 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.53
- Nox Hall · ph · 2026-10-11 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- I taught LLMs to play Magic: The Gathering against each other · hn · 2026-02-17 · 117 upvotes · similarity 0.51
The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.