ABSTRACT
Game playing seems to satisfy a basic craving of human cognition by exercising its fundamental abilities in a competitive setting. Therefore, it provides an excellent benchmark to study and evaluate cognitive models in tractable yet naturalistic settings that are simple and formal yet reproduce much of the complexity of real life. Poker is probably the most widely played card game, with endless variations played by millions of adherents from casual players gambling pennies to professionals competing in million-dollar tournaments. Unlike other games that emphasize one particular aspect of cognition, poker involves a broad range of cognitive activities, including:
Reasoning under uncertainty (opponents’ cards)
Dealing with probabilistic outcomes (future cards)
Decision-making with multiple options (chips used for bets)
Individual differences (different styles of play)
Inference of intent (from opponents’ bets)
Intentional deception (bluffing, sandbagging)
Pattern recognition (detecting trends from flow of game)
Social and emotional aspects (dealing with winning and losing)
Economic behavior (factoring impact of amount of bets)
