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Empirical Exploitability Without Equilibrium: A Prospective Test on 2.1 Million 2025 PokerStars 50NL Hands

Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This research note reports the frozen R4.5 NoGTO Final Exam, a prospective chronological validation conducted on 2,127,461 unique 2025 PokerStars 50NL hands. The experiment evaluated whether behaviourally inferred pressure opportunities could be economically identified without equilibrium analysis as the mandatory starting point. The preregistered Final Exam finished UNRESOLVED: a large and temporally stable positive measured economic signal was observed, while 572 fee-authority blocks prevented certification of the complete net ledger, and the mandatory player-versus-pool incremental-value test was not supported. The results nevertheless demonstrate substantial prospective empirical exploitability in the studied population and motivate a revised pool-first inference architecture in which player-specific evidence must earn the right to override the population prior.
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7208834168
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