chess computers are better than people because chess computers brute force the problem, they can think millions of moves in advance and plan out every possible game path, a human can only think several moves in advance, so huge advantage for the computer.
in poker, there are only a handful of cards in play, only a few decision spots per hand, a pro poker player could probably program a computer to be as good as he is by giving it the rules which he plays by, but it is unlikely a computer will ever surpass the talent of the best players imo
A few minor corrections. First, most chess programs don't literally "brute force" the problem. A lot of work goes into pruning the search tree and only looking along the most promising paths. Second, humans can actually think many moves ahead along certain paths.
As other's have stated in this thread chess is particularly well suited to be played well by a computer program, but that does not make it trivial.
Computers can brute force poker too. The way computers and humans play chess is also very different, although there is superficial similarity in that they both enumerate future moves.
chess computers are better than people because chess computers brute force the problem, they can think millions of moves in advance and plan out every possible game path, a human can only think several moves in advance, so huge advantage for the computer.
in poker, there are only a handful of cards in play, only a few decision spots per hand, a pro poker player could probably program a computer to be as good as he is by giving it the rules which he plays by, but it is unlikely a computer will ever surpass the talent of the best players imo