A Carnegie Mellon University team headed by Tuomas Sandholm,professor of computer science, won the heads-up, no-limit bankroll category in the annual Computer Poker Competition at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence 2010 conference this week in Atlanta, Ga.

The team included Sam Ganzfried, a PhD student in computer science, and Andrew Gilpin, an adjunct assistant professor of computer science who earned his PhD here last year.

In the bankroll competition, the team's pokerbot won by amassing the most virtual money against all of the competitors. The team finished third in this year's heads-up, no-limit bankroll instant run-off competition, in which the bot that makes the least money overall in each round is eliminated and additional rounds are played until all bots are eliminated except for the champion.

Sandholm's teams have been strong competitors in the annual AAAI computer poker tournaments since they began in 2006 and won the heads-up limit Texas Hold'em category in 2008.