• DOI:10.1287/mnsc.1090.1044
• Corpus ID: 16648789

Poker Player Behavior After Big Wins and Big Losses

@article{Smith2009PokerPB,
  title={Poker Player Behavior After Big Wins and Big Losses},
  author={Gary Smith and Michael Levere and Robert Kurtzman},
  journal={Manag. Sci.},
  year={2009},
  volume={55},
  pages={1547-1555}
}

• Gary Smith, Michael Levere, Robert Kurtzman
• Published 1 September 2009
• Economics
• Manag. Sci.

We find that experienced poker players typically change their style of play after winning or losing a big pot---most notably, playing less cautiously after a big loss, evidently hoping for lucky cards that will erase their loss. This finding is consistent with Kahneman and Tversky's (Kahneman, D., A. Tversky. 1979. Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica47(2) 263--292) break-even hypothesis and suggests that when investors incur a large loss, it might be time to take a vacation or be monitored closely.