The Poker Table as a Skinner Box
Does the stimulus and response of playing many hands of poker reinforce any particular style or styles of playing through a process like operant conditioning?
If so, does poker do so in as simple a manner as "if you play poker for reason X, the playing style that gets reinforced is style Y"?
I've been wondering about this and similar things lately. I don't know very much about behavioral psychology or operant conditioning.
Imagine tight-aggressive player getting a bunch of good hands in close succession, pushing them hard, and losing all of them. This player then starts driving other hands hard, and losing with them, too. After spewing a bunch of chips, the player rebuys, and now plays much more passively, more weak-tight ... and the other players take ruthless advantage of it, and our hero loses even more.
Have we just witnessed an 'extinction burst' of tight-aggressive play?
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