What differentiates professional poker players from recreational poker players? A qualitative interview study

The popularity of poker (and in particular online poker) has increasingly grown worldwide in recent years. Some of the factors that may explain this increased popularity include: (i) an increasing number of celebrities endorsing and playing poker, (ii) an increased number of televised poker tournaments, (iii) 24/7 access of poker via the internet, and (iv) the low stakes needed to play online poker. This increase in the popularity of poker has led to the increased incidence of the ‘professional poker player’. However, very little empirical research has been carried out into this relatively new group of gamblers. This research comprised a grounded theory study involving the analysis of data from three professional poker players, one semi-professional poker player and five recreational poker players. Results showed that all players believed that poker was a game of skill. The central theme as to what distinguishes professional poker players from recreational players was that professional poker players were much more disciplined in their gambling behaviour. They treated their poker playing as work, and as such were more likely to be logical and controlled in their behaviour, took less risks, and were less likely to chase losses. Recreational players were more likely to engage in chasing behaviour, showed signs of lack of control, took more risks, and engaged in gambling while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Also of importance was the number of games and time spent playing online. Recreational players only played one or two games at a time, whereas professional poker players were much more likely to engage in multitable poker online, and played longer sessions, thus increasing the potential amount of winnings. Playing poker for a living is very possible for a minority of players but it takes a combination of talent, dedication, patience, discipline and disposition to succeed

Poker Cash Game: a Thermodynamic Description

Poker is one of the most popular card games, whose rational investigation represents also one of the major challenges in several scientific areas, spanning from information theory and artificial intelligence to game theory and statistical physics. In principle, several variants of Poker can be identified, although all of them make use of money to make the challenge meaningful and, moreover, can be played in two different formats: tournament and cash game. An important issue when dealing with Poker is its classification, i.e., as a `skill game' or as gambling. Nowadays, its classification still represents an open question, having a long list of implications (e.g., legal and healthcare) that vary from country to country. In this study, we analyze Poker challenges, considering the cash game format, in terms of thermodynamics systems. Notably, we propose a framework to represent a cash game Poker challenge that, although based on a simplified scenario, allows both to obtain useful information for rounders (i.e., Poker players), and to evaluate the role of Poker room in this context. Finally, starting from a model based on thermodynamics, we show the evolution of a Poker challenge, making a direct connection with the probability theory underlying its dynamics and finding that, even if we consider these games as `skill games', to take a real profit from Poker is really hard.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. Contribute to the proceedings "Mathematical Physics: from Theory to Applications" (European Physics Press

Is Poker a Skill Game? New Insights from Statistical Physics

During last years poker has gained a lot of prestige in several countries and, beyond to be one of the most famous card games, it represents a modern challenge for scientists belonging to different communities, spanning from artificial intelligence to physics and from psychology to mathematics. Unlike games like chess, the task of classifying the nature of poker (i.e., as 'skill game' or gambling) seems really hard and it also constitutes a current problem, whose solution has several implications. In general, gambling offers equal winning probabilities both to rational players (i.e., those that use a strategy) and to irrational ones (i.e., those without a strategy). Therefore, in order to uncover the nature of poker, a viable way is comparing performances of rational versus irrational players during a series of challenges. Recently, a work on this topic revealed that rationality is a fundamental ingredient to succeed in poker tournaments. In this study we analyze a simple model of poker challenges by a statistical physics approach, with the aim to uncover the nature of this game. As main result we found that, under particular conditions, few irrational players can turn poker into gambling. Therefore, although rationality is a key ingredient to succeed in poker, also the format of challenges has an important role in these dynamics, as it can strongly influence the underlying nature of the game. The importance of our results lies on related implications, as for instance in identifying the limits poker can be considered as a `skill game' and, as a consequence, which kind of format must be chosen to devise algorithms able to face humans.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Acquisition, development, and maintenance of online poker playing in a student sample

To date there has been very little empirical research into Internet gambling and none relating to the recent rise in popularity of online poker. Given that recent reports have claimed that students may be a vulnerable group, the aim of the current study was to establish basic information regarding Internet poker playing behavior among the student population, including various motivators for participation and predictors of problematic play. The study examined a self-selected sample of student online poker players using an online survey (n=422). Results showed that online poker playing was undertaken at least twice per week by a third of the participants. Almost one in five of the sample (18%) was defined as a problem gambler using the DSM-IV criteria. Findings demonstrated that problem gambling in this population was best predicted by negative mood states after playing, gender swapping whilst playing, and playing to escape from problems

Poker as a Skill Game: Rational vs Irrational Behaviors

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.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

A Unified View of Large-scale Zero-sum Equilibrium Computation

The task of computing approximate Nash equilibria in large zero-sum extensive-form games has received a tremendous amount of attention due mainly to the Annual Computer Poker Competition. Immediately after its inception, two competing and seemingly different approaches emerged---one an application of no-regret online learning, the other a sophisticated gradient method applied to a convex-concave saddle-point formulation. Since then, both approaches have grown in relative isolation with advancements on one side not effecting the other. In this paper, we rectify this by dissecting and, in a sense, unify the two views.Comment: AAAI Workshop on Computer Poker and Imperfect Informatio