BY TOM SOMACH

Who’s better at poker, computers or human beings?

That question was answered last week in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, when two pro poker players narrowly beat a computer, after four tense rounds that scientists called the world’s first man-versus-machine poker championship, the Vancouver Province reported.

Phil “Unabomber” Laak and Ali “The Sheik” Eslami, two professional poker players from Los Angeles, Calif., USA, who rank among the world’s best, prevailed against a computer named Polaris in the fourth and final game of the match, the newspaper reported.

A crowd of weary computer scientists and poker fans watched the gruelling poker battle in a hotel conference room in Vancouver as it stretched on until 11 p.m. on Tuesday, and when the humans won, the room erupted in cheers, it reported.

“I really am happy it’s over,” Eslami told the newspaper, adding that playing against the computer was more exhausting than any previous game in his career. “I’m surprised we won.”

The previous three games over two days resulted in one tie and one win each for humans and the machine, the newspaper reported.

Special computer software was created by a University of Alberta “geek squad” of articificial intelligence computer scientists, so Polaris could play poker against the pros, other news sources reported.

It’s the first time people have played against machines in poker, they reported.

However, this was not the first time man and machine matched wits in a game of skill.

In 1997, a computer programmed by IBM “geeks” and called Deep Blue beat reigning world chess champion Gary Kasparov of Russia in a series of chess matches.

The humiliated Russian has so far refused to give the machine a rematch.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)