Poker as a skill game: rational versus irrational behaviors

Javarone, Marco Alberto

doi:10.1088/1742-5468/2015/03/p03018

Cited by 16 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…In the other case, which resembles quenched randomness, a player uses one of the mentioned updating rules exclusively, but the fraction of those players who belongs to a specific set is well-defined. We note that considering an adaptive population where players playing a skill game was reported in [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic-sensitive cooperation in the presence of multiple strategy updating rules

Szolnoki

Danku

2018

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

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The importance of microscopic details on cooperation level is an intensively studied aspect of evolutionary game theory. Interestingly, these details become crucial on heterogeneous populations where individuals may possess diverse traits. By introducing a coevolutionary model in which not only strategies but also individual dynamical features may evolve we revealed that the formerly established conclusion is not necessarily true when different updating rules are on stage. In particular, we apply two strategy updating rules, imitation and Death-Birth rule, which allow local selection in a spatial system. Our observation highlights that the microscopic feature of dynamics, like the level of learning activity, could be a fundamental factor even if all players share the same trait uniformly.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic-sensitive cooperation in the presence of multiple strategy updating rules

Szolnoki

Danku

2018

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

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“…Typically, the basic dynamics of the PGG let agents change their strategy according to rules based on the payoff [4], e.g. agents imitate their richest neighbor, which is our definition of rational thinking [39]. In our model we aim to investigate the outcomes of the PGG in heterogeneous populations, i.e.…”

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confidence: 99%

Conformity-driven agents support ordered phases in the spatial public goods game

Javarone¹,

Antonioni²,

Caravelli³

2016

EPL

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We investigate the spatial Public Goods Game in the presence of fitness-driven and conformitydriven agents. This framework usually considers only the former type of agents, i.e., agents that tend to imitate the strategy of their fittest neighbors. However, whenever we study social systems, the evolution of a population might be affected also by social behaviors as conformism, stubbornness, altruism, and selfishness. Although the term evolution can assume different meanings depending on the considered domain, here it corresponds to the set of processes that lead a system towards an equilibrium or a steady-state. We map fitness to the agents' payoff so that richer agents are those most imitated by fitness-driven agents, while conformity-driven agents tend to imitate the strategy assumed by the majority of their neighbors. Numerical simulations aim to identify the nature of the transition, on varying the amount of the relative density of conformity-driven agents in the population, and to study the nature of related equilibria. Remarkably, we find that conformism generally fosters ordered cooperative phases and may also lead to bistable behaviors. *

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“…Therefore, in this last case, players can play until they have money and, although there are no entry fees to pay, a fraction of each pot is taxed (i.e., a small 'rake' is applied). In the work [22], the author defined a model for representing poker challenges, focusing on tournaments, in order to study the role of rationality. His main result was that the nature of poker does not depend on its rules but on the players's behavior, then identifying rationality as a key ingredient to succeed.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…As a consequence, since 'heads-up' tournaments have a tree-like structure, the final winner is a rational player when the number of total participants N , regardless of their behavior, is N ≤ 2 W . After analyzing poker tournaments by different conditions (e.g., also allowing rationals to change behavior), the author [22] states that the nature of poker depends on the players' behavior, but not on its rules.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Notably, we map agent states as follows: σ = +1 for rational agents and σ = −1 for irrational agents. Furthermore, we assume that a rational player wins a full challenge against an irrational one with the probability π w r defined in [22]. Therefore, the stochastic process of a poker challenge, involving players x and y, is reduced to a coin flip with winning probabilities…”

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confidence: 99%

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Is poker a skill game? New insights from statistical physics

Javarone¹

2015

EPL

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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. *

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Poker as a skill game: rational versus irrational behaviors

Cited by 16 publications

References 20 publications

Dynamic-sensitive cooperation in the presence of multiple strategy updating rules

Dynamic-sensitive cooperation in the presence of multiple strategy updating rules

Conformity-driven agents support ordered phases in the spatial public goods game

Is poker a skill game? New insights from statistical physics

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