Game Theory and Poker
Poker has been the go to gambling game for decades. With different variations and edits over the years, poker has kept a consistent base set of rules that has persisted over generations: betting, folding, calling, and checking. With the decision tree essentially becoming 4 pronged every single hand, it is no secret that there is math and emotion playing key roles into each game. For many years, the common poker player would participate in emotion based poker and use scare tactics to win hands. This could be anywhere from stare-downs to calling outrageous table talk to mess with opponent’s mental state and make poor decisions. However, the sport of poker has evolved as we have started to see the application of statistics, probability, and, most importantly game theory.
As stated before, poker can be seen as a game of decisions. Those decisions can either help or hurt you in the short term and long term. In academic terms, there is always a “nash equilibrium” decision and absolute decision for each participant to make. Many up and coming professionals are adopting the newly created “game-theory optimal” strategy and have been able to oust some of the older poker players who have played in more traditional styles. The core part of this strategy comes from making decisions based on what the opponent does and following basic concept such as betting equaling strength and checking equaling weakness. This not only identifies which hands in poker are the “winning hands”, but when the right time to “bluff” or lie about the strength of your own hand.
https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1378&context=etd