Cornell University Study Shows Playing More Poker Hands Means Less Profit

The old poker adage “tight is right” may seemingly have gone the way of the Dodo, especially in the current online poker age of constant aggression. A recent study by a sociology student at Cornell University suggest that the adage, however quaint, may actually be correct.

A recent article published on the website Science Daily, and the actual study – published by the Journal of Gambling Studies, – state that players who enter into more hands often lose more money overall than their more conservative fellows. Cornell sociology doctoral student Kyle Siler, a longtime online poker player who performed the experiment, came to the conclusion that when players win more hands, they often end up on the losing side of the balance sheet. Siler determined that when players won, they often made small profits on their hands. When these same players lost, however, the amounts were greater and put them into the red as to their overall earnings.

Siler used PokerTracker to compile 27 million hands, broken down between small, medium, and high-stakes players, and analyzed the entirety of the results. Siler suggests in his study that players overvalue the number of wins versus what the players should actually be looking at, the overall cash won or lost. Siler is quoted in the article saying that his results “coincide with observations in behavioral economics.”

Of particular interest to poker players, and especially those who play at smaller stakes or are inexperienced at the game, could be Siler’s assertion as to the value of particular pocket pairs for hole cards. In his study, Siler found that smaller pairs – deuces through sevens – were actually more valuable than what he called the middle pairs, eights through jacks: “This is because small pairs have a less ambiguous value, and medium pairs are better hands but have more ambiguous values that small-stakes players apparently have trouble understanding.”

The article goes on to break down how the different playing levels (small, medium, and high-stakes) articulate the behaviors of human beings. Poker “speaks to how humans handle risk and uncertainty,” Science Daily quotes Siler. “Riskiness may be profitable, especially in higher-stakes games, but it also increases the variance and uncertainty in payoffs. Living one’s life, calibrating multiple strategies and managing a bankroll, is particularly challenging when enduring wild and erratic swings in short-term luck and results.”

For many who play poker, either recreationally or for a living, the findings of Siler’s study are well known. Many poker books, including Phil Hellmuth’s Play Poker Like A Pro and the seminal offering from Doyle Brunson, Super/System, have espoused the theory of playing only strong starting hands such as high pocket pairs or strong aces. With the advent of online poker and the offbeat playing styles of celebrities such as Gus Hansen, Daniel Negreanu, and Dario Minieri, the play of less than quality starting hands has proliferated. Siler’s study contends that, while it may be a more exciting way to play poker, it is not the most profitable method.