AIVAT: A New Variance Reduction Technique for Agent Evaluation in Imperfect Information Games · HackerPapers discussionshttps://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1612.06915/Collected HN comments and submissions linking this paper.enMon, 02 Nov 2026 11:16:22 GMTAIVAT: A New Variance Reduction Technique for Agent Evaluation in Imperfect Information Games — mentioned by junarhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20416099urn:hackerpapers:mention:1612.06915:20416099Thu, 11 Jul 2019 21:36:10 GMT<p>They mention that they use AIVAT to reduce variance. &gt; Although poker is a game of skill, there is an extremely large luck component as well. It is common for top professionals to lose money even over the course of 10,000 hands of poker simply because of bad luck. To reduce the role of luck, we used a version of the AIVAT[1] variance reduction algorithm, which applies a baseline estimate of the value of each situation to reduce variance while still keeping the samples unbiased. For example, if the bot is dealt a really strong hand, AIVAT will subtract a baseline value from its winnings to…</p><p><a href="https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1612.06915/">Paper and discussion history</a>. A mention is not an endorsement.</p>cs.AI