Skip to main content



Poker: A Game Described By Game Theory

http://increaseyourpokeriq.com/strategy/importance-of-game-theory-in-poker/

Poker is a game of strategy and cunning that involves “knowing when to hold ’em and knowing when to fold ’em”. Strategy however is highly dependent on the payoffs attributed to every player and in poker the payoffs are solely dependent on the strategy of every other player.

In the link provided they list different aspects of poker as it relates to game theory. One of the most easily recognizable is maximizing profit. If one was playing solely based on the dominant strategy then they would always pick the strategy that maximized the profit without consideration of the other players. This method of playing poker is described as being effective in situations where the opponents are very inexperienced. I say this because good players take into consideration what the opponents are going to play. Therefore, they develop their strategy based on what they expect the opponent to play. For instance playing with dominant strategies could mean that you always stay and continue to bid because your payoffs would be the largest in this instance. In the same setting though your opponent could easily anticipate your play and react accordingly.

There is also a strategy of exploitation. This involves anticipating your opponent to continue to play the same strategy so you produce a counter to it. As an analogy imagine the game rock, paper, scissors. If your opponent played rock the first round you can guess that the next turn they will choose a different item. This strategy is flawed though. This is assuming that your opponent adheres to the same strategy every time. To reference this to poker imagine playing against someone that always bluffs. If you catch on in time you can perform a counter to their strategy resulting in you winning. However, once they realize that you have not only discovered their strategy, but have performed a successful counter they will in turn provide a counter to your counter. In the poker example this would be analogous to you calling their bluff, but then the next round they immediately stop bluffing.

Overall poker is a game that largely depends on how good your opponent is, how lucky you are with you hand, and how good you are at predicting what outcome will present itself. It has much relevance to game theory and therefore much relevance to networks.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Blogging Calendar

November 2011
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930  

Archives