The gospel of EV in poker has been seriously challenged by the young-bloods in poker today. They certainly do not play by the poker adage – “tight is right”. Today’s online poker hot-heads appear to have made many of the old poker adages go the way of the dinosaur by playing in constantly aggressive mode for the most part. This sees them making millions of dollars in short periods of time, over thousand of hours spent on their computers; playing muti-table cash games and tournaments. This new phenomenon has caught the attention of the scientific community and in a recent study out of Cornell University – one sociology student believes that the adage “tight is right” may be quaint for current poker trends, but is actually more than likely correct.

Published in the Journal of Gambling Studies and excerpted in “Science Daily” the study points out, that players entering more hands simultaneously and more regularly than their “tighter” playing poker peers, are more apt to lose more money overall. These results “coincide with observations in behavioural economics.” So, perhaps the challenge of the gospel of EV, is not as challenged as we were beginning to believe.

Kyle Siler is a long-time online poker player as well as a Cornell sociology doctoral student, and it is he who performed an experiment to substantiate his study by using PokerTracker. This is an invaluable tool for any player, something which most online poker players know. The determination of the study was, that the more hands which are played, the smaller the profits and bigger the losses in terms of overall earnings.

Using PokerTracker he compiled 27 million hands. These were broken down into small, medium, and high-stakes players. Results were analyzed in their entirety. He suggests that players overvalue the number of wins vs. the actual cash won. The study also suggests that the results found were deemed to have more relevance to players who are less experienced and play at smaller stakes tables. He also expounds on how the break-down of the various levels of poker play ie. small, medium, and high-stakes, are expressive of human behaviour; in other words – how human beings manage risk and indecision.

Another very interesting aspect of this online poker study relates to the value of pocket pairs. The old-school of thought poker players such as Phil Helmuth and Doyle Brunson maintain that strong starting hands with high pocket pairs are the way to play. Gently nudging them off this ledge of belief are the younger players such as Daniel Negreanu and Gus Hansen who maintain off-beat styles and espouse playing less than quality hands. Stiller’s study found smaller pairs – 2′s through 7′s to be more valuable to small stakes players. The point is that value of small pairs is less ambiguous while medium pairs – 8′s to J’s, and their value are more difficult to understand for small stakes players. Apart from the small stakes category – the study does maintain that the higher the starting hand – the more profitable the method of play.