The More Hands You Win, The More Money You Shell Out in Online Poker" Cornell Study

Sounds counterintuitive but a recent Cornell study of online poker has found that the more hands players win, the less money they're likely to collect - especially when it comes to novice players.

And Cornell sociology doctoral student Kyle Siler, said that the likely reason for such a trend could be that the multiple wins are likely for small stakes, and the more you play, the more likely you will eventually be walloped by occasional - but significant - losses.

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In the study, the researchers analysed 27 million online poker hands.

This finding "coincides with observations in behavioural economics that people overweigh their frequent small gains vis-à-vis occasional large losses, and vice versa," said Siler.

In other words, players feel positively reinforced by their streak of wins but have difficulty fully understanding how their occasional large losses offset their gains.

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The study also found that for small-stakes players, small pairs (from twos to sevens) were actually more valuable than medium pairs (eights through jacks).

"This is because small pairs have a less ambiguous value, and medium pairs are better hands but have more ambiguous values that small-stakes players apparently have trouble understanding," said Siler.

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Siler used the software PokerTracker to upload and analyze small-stakes, medium-stakes and high-stakes hands of No-Limit Texas Hold'em with six seats at the table.

The game has simple rules and "any single hand can involve players risking their entire stack of chips," said Siler.

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The research not only examined the "strategic demography" of poker at different levels of stakes and the various payoffs associated with different strategies at varying levels of play, but also "speaks to how humans handle risk and uncertainty," said Siler, whose look at online poker combines aspects of behavioural economics, economic sociology and social science theory.

"Riskiness may be profitable, especially in higher-stakes games, but it also increases the variance and uncertainty in payoffs. Living one's life, calibrating multiple strategies and managing a bankroll is particularly challenging when enduring wild and erratic swings in short-term luck and results," he added.

Siler concluded that in online poker-a multibillion dollar industry- the biggest opponent for many players may be themselves, "given the challenges of optimizing one's mindset and strategies, both in the card game and the meta-games of psychology, rationality and socio-economic arbitrage which hover beneath it."

The study was published online in December in the Journal of Gambling Studies.

Source-ANI