Following on from the recent ruling in a UK court, which said that poker is a game of chance, some academic opinion has surfaced which puts forward the other side of the argument.
Michael DeDonno, a doctoral candidate from Case Western Reserve University, has conducted a study which provides empirical evidence that skill is an important part of the game of poker.
DeDonno has published an article titled 'Poker is a Skill', which was written with douglas Detterman, a psychologist from Cleveland Ohio University.
The preliminary study involved 41 university students playing eight games of a computerised simulation of poker called Turbo Texas Hold'em. The games worked out at 200 hands of poker played, and half the students were given charts which ranked two card combinations from best to worst, and also given some basic strategy information. The other half of the group were only given a little information on the history of poker. The study found that players given some strategy advice performed better than those without strategies.
The findings were tested in a second study under similar conditions, but this group played 720 hands. Again, the group that was given basic strategies performed better. DeDonno also noted that those who were given strategies reduced the number of hands played to around 15%, and their results improved – validating the theory that fewer hands played does mean an increase in performance.
Email this page
Print this page
Bookmark with del.icio.us
