So much for revenge.

Today Microsoft is giving away Texas Hold ‘Em as a free download on Live (they will charge for it tomorrow). So I grabbed it.

Elena has never played poker. We walked through the help screens, then I started a single-player game with $150. I lost a few, I won a few, and I was at $120, as she kibbitzed on the side. Then she said she was bored. So I handed her the controller.

She then proceeded to take 15 consecutive hands. She’s up to well over $360 right now, and has only lost two hands since she took the controller from me. I may have created a monster. Kristen says she’s never playing penny poker with her ever. It’s frightening to watch — the AIs just quail in front of her bluffs and crumble. She pulls out full houses from nowhere.

I’m depressed again. She’s even unlocked three achievements in the space of ten minutes. I suppose I should be happy she’s playing on my login, so they count towards me. 😛

I mentioned she’s nine, right?

Edit: An hour later, and her winnings have crested $800. She’s only lost five hands.

“So, honey,” I said. “Have you ever heard of Vegas?”

“Yeah.”

“This is what they do there.”

“This is it?”

Thankfully, her bedtime is approaching, and our utter humiliation will soon end.

Edit: Final comment, we got her to stop once she crested $1000 in winnings. This was good enough to put her atop the friends list leaderboard, and ranked something like #136 globally in the single-player game. Yeesh. At least by tomorrow she’ll have washed down the rankings a lot.

Looking at how she played, I think she essentially exploited the way in which the AI algorithms handle raises. She’d always raise before the flop, and almost every time, she’d get the pot because everyone else would fold. The stats on her hands were very telling; she won every single hand that ended pre-flop, at flop, and at turn. She only lost if the hand went all the way to completion.