The calling station : how feedback and regret aversion affect decision making in Texas poker

Abstract

Texas hold'em is one of the most popular forms of poker game in recent years that afford valuable insights into the decision-making process. Yet, the psychological explanations of participants' behaviours of the participants are yet well explained. Calling station refers to a type of passive-loose poker player who always plays the hands and calls the bets regardless of the strength of their hole cards. The present study examined the motivations of calling station's decision-making behaviour. It is proposed that regret aversion triggered by the availability of feedback (community cards combinations and game results) is the course of such conduct and drives the participants to adopt the regret-minimizing instead of the risk-avoiding strategy. The study also investigated if the winning probability and pot size would interact with the feedback conditions and affect an individual's behaviour. A sample of 30 adult poker players was recruited to participate in a Texas Poker game simulation experiment measuring their bet-call tendency, and to complete a set of questionnaires evaluating the regret experience in the game. Contrary to the expectation, our data shows a higher call rate in the Call-Only feedback condition over the Always-feedback condition. Although anticipated regret may still be one of the various causes giving rise to the call station's behaviour, the mechanisms behind are possibly different to our predictions. This study also examined two possible moderators of the feedback effects on the calling behaviour. As our research shows, winning probability demonstrated significant influence on the effects of feedback when the game was at its high or medium level. However, pot size only significantly affected the call rate of different feedback conditions when it was large. This study's findings, though opposite to our prediction, supported the notion that feedback remarkably instigate the calling station behaviour and offered useful insights for future investigation.