What are the pros and cons of using a self-training neural network versus traditional rule-based systems in poker bots?

I’ve been playing around with different poker bot setups for fun, nothing too serious, and hit a wall trying to decide between sticking to the old-school rule-based logic or letting a neural net do its own learning. I actually tried a basic rules script during a home game sim, and it felt predictable after a while — like once you see the pattern, you know what’s coming. But the neural net version feels like a black box, I don’t fully get why it makes certain moves. Has anyone here had success balancing those two approaches?

I’ve been down that road myself. I once coded a simple bot with set ranges and conditions, but it got wrecked as soon as the opponents mixed things up. What I’ve learned is that self-training networks can adapt and feel way less robotic — but they also demand a lot more testing and patience. If you’re curious, I found a breakdown of pros and cons on poker helper ai that really helped me understand when to trust automation and when to keep some structure in place. It made me realize you can use rules to guide the net without locking it down completely.

Sometimes I just like following these threads because they remind me of when I tried learning chess openings from scratch. I kept memorizing the same lines but never figured out the “why” behind each move. Over time, the trial-and-error part taught me way more than just repeating patterns from a book. It felt slower at first but way more rewarding when I noticed myself improving without even realizing it.

For me, I usually mix both approaches in small doses. I’ll let the neural net play a bunch of simulated hands to explore unexpected moves, then I’ll overlay some basic rules to prevent obviously bad plays. It’s kind of like giving it guardrails without stifling creativity. Honestly, just seeing how it reacts to weird scenarios in practice games has taught me more than any strict formula ever could — and it keeps the process fun instead of feeling like a chore.