Poker as a skill game: rational versus irrational behaviors

Poker as a Skill Game: Rational vs Irrational Behaviors

In several countries poker games are, probably, the most famous card games. Although each variant of poker has its own rules, all of them are characterized by the utilization of money to make sense the challenge. Nowadays, in the collective consciousness, some variants of poker are referred as skill games and others as gamble games. The utilization of money plays a fundamental role as it affect...

Poker Superstars : Skill or Luck ? Similarities between golf — thought to be a game of skill — and poker

The popularity of poker has exploded in recent years. The premier event, the World Series of Poker Main Event, which costs $10,000 to enter, has increased from a field of six in 1971 to 839 in 2003 and 5,619 in 2005. Broadcasts of poker tournaments can frequently be found on television stations such as ESPN, Fox Sports, the Travel Channel, Bravo, and the Game Show Network. These tournaments con...

Poker, Chance and Skill

The question if poker is a game of skill or a game of chance received a considerable amount of attention mainly because of its potential legal implications. See, for example, [3] and its many references. Most of the material dealing with the subject focuses on legal issues, and only briefly touches the question from a purely scientific point of view. In the present article we address the questi...

The Role of Skill versus Luck in Poker: Evidence from the World Series of Poker

In determining the legality of online poker – a multibillion dollar industry -courts have relied heavily on the issue of whether or not poker is a game of skill. Using newly available data, we analyze that question by examining the performance in the 2010 World Series of Poker of a group of poker players identified as being highly skilled prior to the start of the events. Those players identifi...

Rational and Irrational Bubbles