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 affects the way people play these games. In particular, different psychological behaviors can be observed during a challenge. Just to cite a few, rationality, fear, composure, and even madness, can strongly drive the players’ strategy. Under this perspective, a poker table can be considered as a psychology lab, where several human behaviors can be observed. In this work, we develop a preliminary analysis about the role of rationality in poker games, using the variant Texas Hold’em as reference. In particular, we compare the performances of two different kinds of players, i.e., rational players 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. ∗ [email protected] 1 ar X iv :1 40 9. 68 43 v2 [ ph ys ic s. so cph ] 1 3 O ct 2 01 4