And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout, But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.—Casey at the Bat, Earnest Lawrence Thayer

There is rapidly diminishing joy around here. The math is building up, and it doesn’t look great.

“It’s common for a guy to be $200,000 up in Texas Hold ’em and still lose,” said Doug Polk, the world’s number one ranked poker player, at the beginning of the “Brains vs. Artificial Inelligence” tournament at the Rivers Casino here in Pittsburgh. I’d held onto that thought through the end of play on Friday, April 24, when Claudico, CMU’s AI poker player, had been some 150 large in the hole against four of the planet’s top 10 poker players. Claudico even gave me a jolt of hope over the weekend, on Saturday regaining nearly $90,000 against the four players collectively (though still not overtaking the humans in the cumulative score). To read further, please visit http://psc.edu/index.php/news-and-media/blog/111-quick-science/1948-claudico-at-the-bat.