TY - JOUR
T1 - Stripped-down poker
T2 - A classroom game with signaling and bluffing
AU - Reiley, David H.
AU - Urbancic, Michael B.
AU - Walker, Mark
N1 - Funding Information:
David Reiley is the Arizona Public Service Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona (e-mail: reiley@eller.arizona.edu). Michael B. Urbancic is an economics PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. Mark Walker is the Eller Professor of Economics and economics department chair at the University of Arizona. The authors gratefully acknowledge support from NSF grant SES-0094800. They thank Martin Dufwenberg and three anonymous referees for valuable comments. They also acknowledge Martin Dufwenberg for suggestions of interesting references on real-world poker, David Caballero for research assistance, Peter Winkler for a discussion about the value of information in this game, Charlie Holt for the litigation example, and Ann Talman for her suggestion of the article’s title. Copyright © 2008 Heldref Publications
PY - 2008/9/1
Y1 - 2008/9/1
N2 - The authors present a simplified, "stripped-down" version of poker as an instructional classroom game. Although Stripped-Down Poker is extremely simple, it nevertheless provides an excellent illustration of a number of topics: signaling, bluffing, mixed strategies, the value of information, and Bayes's Rule. The authors begin with a description of Stripped-Down Poker: how to play it, what makes it an interesting classroom game, and how to teach its solution to students. They describe how signaling, bluffing, and so forth emerge naturally as important features of the game and then discuss possible applications of this game-theoretic model to real-world interactions, such as litigation, tax evasion, and domestic or international diplomacy. They also suggest modifications of the game either for use in class or as student exercises. For reference, they conclude with a brief history of game-theoretic treatments of poker.
AB - The authors present a simplified, "stripped-down" version of poker as an instructional classroom game. Although Stripped-Down Poker is extremely simple, it nevertheless provides an excellent illustration of a number of topics: signaling, bluffing, mixed strategies, the value of information, and Bayes's Rule. The authors begin with a description of Stripped-Down Poker: how to play it, what makes it an interesting classroom game, and how to teach its solution to students. They describe how signaling, bluffing, and so forth emerge naturally as important features of the game and then discuss possible applications of this game-theoretic model to real-world interactions, such as litigation, tax evasion, and domestic or international diplomacy. They also suggest modifications of the game either for use in class or as student exercises. For reference, they conclude with a brief history of game-theoretic treatments of poker.
KW - Classroom experiment
KW - Game theory
KW - Signaling
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U2 - 10.3200/JECE.39.4.323-341
DO - 10.3200/JECE.39.4.323-341
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:67649525452
VL - 39
SP - 323
EP - 341
JO - Journal of Economic Education
JF - Journal of Economic Education
SN - 0022-0485
IS - 4
ER -