What Happens in the Field Stays in the Field: Exploring Whether Professionals Play Minimax in Laboratory Experiments

Abstract

The minimax argument represents game theory in its most elegant form: simple but with stark predictions. Although some of these predictions have been met with reasonable success in the field, experimental data have generally not provided results close to the theoretical predictions. In a striking study, Palacios-Huerta and Volij (2007) present evidence that potentially resolves this puzzle: both amateur and professional soccer players play nearly exact minimax strategies in laboratory experiments. In this paper, we establish important bounds on these results by examining the behavior of four distinct subject pools: college students, bridge professionals, world-class poker players, who have vast experience with high-stakes randomization in card games, and American professional soccer players. In contrast to Palacios-Huerta and Volij's results, we find little evidence that real-world experience transfers to the lab in these games-indeed, similar to previous experimental results, all four subject pools provide choices that are generally not close to minimax predictions. We use two additional pieces of evidence to explore why professionals do not perform well in the lab: (1) complementary experimental treatments that pit professionals against preprogrammed computers, and (2) post-experiment questionnaires. The most likely explanation is that these professionals are unable to transfer their skills at randomization from the familiar context of the field to the unfamiliar context of the lab.

Adolescents, cognitive ability, and minimax play

“…This is the consensus of laboratory and field tests of the repeated play of fixed pairs from populations such as college students (O'Neill, 1987;Rosenthal et al, 2003), professional athletes (Walker and Wooders, 2001; Levitt et al, 2010), experienced poker players (Van Essen and Wooders, 2013), human teams (Okano, 2013), people with schizophrenia (Baek et al, 2013), and primates (Martin et al, 2014). We replicate the O'Neill and Rosenthal et al (hereafter, RSW) studies using students from a middle school in China.…”

The role of self-interest in elite bargaining

“…Therefore, it is plausible that higher levels of learning and experience in elite populations could push them further from the predictions made by standard models, suggesting that the tendency to reject low offers (found in many Western populations) could persist in populations of elite bargainers. Whether this is or is not the case is an empirical question (25,26).…”

Serial correlation in National Football League play calling and its effects on outcomes

“…The conclusions in this literature are not uncontroversial (see Levitt, List, and Reiley, 2010;Palacios-Huerta and Volij, 2008;Van Essen and Wooders, 2015;Wooders, 2010 As we do, Kovash and Levitt (2009) …nd negative serial correlation across plays. Our study di¤ers in that we employ di¤erent measures of e¢ cacy.…”

“…2 Since O'Neill (1987) and the reexamination of the original data by Brown and Rosenthal (1990) there has been mixed evidence regarding mixed strategies in the laboratory. This literature includes Batzilis et al (2014), Binmore, Swierzbinski, and Proulx (2001), Du¤y, Owens, and Smith (2015), Geng et al (2015), Levitt, List, and Reiley (2010), Sopher (1994, 1997), O'Neill (1991), Ochs (1995), Palacios-Huerta and Volij (2008), Amaldoss (2000, 2004), Rapoport and Boebel (1992), Rosenthal, Shachat, and Walker (2003), Shachat (2002), Van Essen and Wooders (2015).…”