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Poker
First, a line-up was constructed using an
average player, a player that was neither
particularly good nor bad, nor tight or loose —
but fairly aggressive. This profile is called
Igor (by the company's software). To see the
normal spread of scores when only
average-skilled players were involved, Igor was
copied 10 times into the line-up. That is, Igor
played against nine other copies of Igor. The
game played was 10-20 Hold'em, where a blind bet
(a forced bet for the first two players) and the
first and second rounds of betting are in $10
increments, and the third and forth rounds
("turn" and "river") are in $20 increments.
The "rake" is the casinos way of making money.
They take a percentage of each pot as profit or
charge a per hour fee. The rake in casino card
rooms varies from 3% to 5%. We selected 5%. The
simulation data did not include the rake, so we
had to estimate the effect of the rake on each
player's net balance, which was based on the
average size of pots and the number of pots won.
In real life, the rake is taken off in fixed
amounts (e.g., $1, $2, etc.) and is capped at a
maximum (e.g., $4). Thus, sometimes the rake is
more than 5%, while other times it is less. In
this simulation, the rake is an exact percentage
from each hand. This inaccuracy somewhat
overestimates the size of the rake, but does not
otherwise affect any of the conclusions that we
draw from the data.
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