6: Blind Stealing: Experience and Expertise in a Mixed-Strategy Poker Experiment

Author(s):

Matt Van Essen, Department of Economics, Finance, and Legal Studies, University of Alabama
John Wooders, Economics Discipline Group, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Date of publication: March 2013

Working paper number: 6

Abstract:

We explore the role of experience in mixed-strategy games by comparing, for a stylized version of Texas Hold-em, the behavior of experts, who have extensive experience playing poker online, to the behavior of novices. We fi?nd signifi?cant differences. The initial frequencies with which players bet and call are closer to equilibrium for experts than novices. And, while the betting and calling frequencies of both types of subjects exhibit too much heterogeneity to be consistent with equilibrium play, the frequencies of experts exhibit less heterogeneity. We fi?nd evidence that the style of online play transfers from the fi?eld to the lab.

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