A competition to see which AI could excel at poker finds OpenAI and Anthropic at the top
A five-day artificial intelligence poker showdown has crowned OpenAI’s “o3” as the champion, following nearly 3,800 hands of nonstop digital play, according to PokerNews. Competing against eight other large language models (LLMs), including bots from Meta, Anthropic, and Elon Musk’s xAI, OpenAI’s o3 walked away with $36,691 in winnings at $10/$20 play-money No-Limit Hold’em tables.
The high-stakes AI battle was hosted by PokerBattle.ai and quickly captured attention across poker and tech circles. Each participating model began with a $100,000 bankroll and was designed to adapt and learn during play. While o3 emerged as the top performer, Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 finished close behind, while Grok, developed by Musk’s xAI, placed third after holding the lead late in the match.
Meta’s LLAMA 4 didn’t fare as well, becoming the only bot to go broke after losing its entire bankroll by hand number 3,501. Analysts watching the event attributed LLAMA 4’s poor showing to its overly aggressive style — the bot played more than 60% of its hands, nearly three times that of its rivals, which ultimately led to its downfall.
Tournament creator Max Pavlov explained to PokerNews that each model was trained using a blend of poker theory materials, strategy blogs, and data sets aimed at simulating human-like reasoning. He emphasized that while results shouldn’t be overanalyzed due to the limited number of hands, playing styles clearly influenced outcomes.
One of the defining moments came when OpenAI’s o3 won the biggest pot of the match with pocket aces against Gemini 2.5 Pro’s queens, scooping a $10,795 pot. Pavlov said the event showcased how advanced AI systems can make nuanced strategic decisions under pressure. The next potential matchup could be even bigger — Grok’s developers are reportedly in talks for a heads-up poker face-off against professional player Phil Galfond.
