Poker as a Skill Game: Rational vs Irrational Behaviors

Abstract

In many countries poker is one of the most popular card games. Although each variant of poker has its own rules, all involve the use of money to make the challenge meaningful. Nowadays, in the collective consciousness, some variants of poker are referred to as games of skill, others as gambling. A poker table can be viewed as a psychology lab, where human behavior can be observed and quantified. This work provides a preliminary analysis of the role of rationality in poker games, using a stylized version of Texas Hold'em. In particular, we compare the performance of two different kinds of players, i.e., rational vs irrational players, during a poker tournament. Results show that these behaviors (i.e., rationality and irrationality) affect both the outcomes of challenges and the way poker should be classified.

15 pages, 5 figures

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• Statistical physics of social dynamics
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Cited by in corpus (5)

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• Dynamic-sensitive cooperation in the presence of multiple strategy updating rules
• The Role of Noise in the Spatial Public Goods Game
• Market Imitation and Win-Stay Lose-Shift strategies emerge as unintended patterns in market direction guesses
• Is Poker a Skill Game? New Insights from Statistical Physics