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Cognitive Biases That Distort Judgment About Chance
A survey of the main thinking errors that bend decisions under uncertainty in games, from streak beliefs to sunk costs, with ways to notice and offset them.
Game Theory and Behavior
Cognitive Biases in Play
Common thinking errors that bend judgment about chance.
Anchoring Effects in Valuing Game Choices
How the first number you see skews later estimates of prices, odds and trades in games, and simple ways to check whether an anchor is steering you.
Confirmation Bias When Evaluating Your Strategy
Why players remember results that support their approach and discount the rest, and how recording outcomes honestly makes strategy reviews more reliable.
Loss Aversion and Prospect Theory
Why a loss usually feels heavier than an equal gain, how prospect theory describes it, and what that means for risk choices in games of chance and strategy.
Near Misses and Why They Feel Like Progress
Why almost winning feels like a step toward success, what research suggests about the brain's response, and how to see a near miss as an ordinary loss.
Overconfidence and Calibration in Estimating Odds
How to test whether your probability guesses are well calibrated, using simple records, a scoring rule and a worked example, and why most people are too sure.
Sunk Cost Thinking in Long Games
How time, money and effort already spent push players to keep going in long games, and a simple forward-looking test for deciding whether to continue.
The Gamblers Fallacy and Streaks in Random Sequences
Why past independent results do not change the next outcome, how streaks arise in random sequences, and how to tell a due-to-change feeling from a real pattern.
The Hot Hand Belief: Do Streaks Mean Anything
Why winning streaks feel meaningful, what research on the hot hand found and later questioned, and what to check before believing a streak in a game.
Tilt and Emotional Control After Bad Luck
How to recognise frustration after setbacks, why tilt degrades decisions in games of luck and skill, and practical ways to pause, reset and play deliberately.
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