Science and Poker Together

January 14, 2009

Some would not think that there would be a clear cut case to put science and poker together in the same equation. Maybe math and poker, but not science; however, an online poker firm is proving them all wrong. They have taken to funding new research that is going to show the correlation between poker and the brain, and they need science to do that.

The poker site is using their profits to fund neurological research to try and understand how people play poker on their site. They are trying to figure out how the brain responds to the various parts of their online poker site, and using it to create a better site.

They use electroencephalography (EEG) technology to get the information from the brain as it reacts to the different things that the brain sees and how they are related to poker. They check if a poker player has a certain reaction to something on the site, or a particular brand of poker, etc. and then they can use that to tweak their site to make it more poker brain friendly.

The poker site figures that they can use this technology to make the experience that poker players have on their site more intense and more enjoyable. They are going to use it to make different levels of enjoyment for their clients, instead of having one level and only some people truly enjoying themselves at the site. One thing that they have already discovered is that novice poker players have a very different reaction to poker than experienced players do.