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The Agent Match Stopped When the Evidence Was Ready

Variance reduction plus continuously monitored confidence sequences cut the hands needed for a precise comparison.

Published Updated Story ID: mp-2026-08-08-015
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Summary

Variance reduction plus continuously monitored confidence sequences cut the hands needed for a precise comparison.

Across 15 poker-agent configurations and 71,439 paired hands, AIVAT reduced outcome variance by a median factor of 54; paired with an asymptotic confidence sequence, raw outcomes needed a median 74 times as many hands to reach the same one-big-blind precision. Exact finite-sample stopping requires a justified payoff bound, which the authors establish structurally for Leduc hold'em.

Why it matters

Variance reduction plus continuously monitored confidence sequences cut the hands needed for a precise comparison.

Limits and context

No additional limitation was separately recorded.

Key claims

  1. Variance reduction plus continuously monitored confidence sequences cut the hands needed for a precise comparison.

    Evidence: source-2026-08-08-017

Sources

  1. arXiv preprint 2608.06362arXiv · primary research

Corrections

No corrections have been recorded for this story.