The reason we lose at games: Some games simply too complex for the human mind to understand

If you have ever wondered why you never seem to win at skill-based games such as poker or chess, there might be a very good reason.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a University of Manchester physicist has discovered that some games are simply impossible to fully learn, or too complex for the human mind to understand.

Dr Tobias Galla from The University of Manchester and Professor Doyne Farmer from Oxford University and the Santa Fe Institute, ran thousands of simulations of two-player games to see how human behaviour affects their decision-making.

In simple games with a small number of moves, such as Noughts and Crosses the optimal strategy is easy to guess, and the game quickly becomes uninteresting.

However, when games became more complex and when there are a lot of moves, such as in chess, the board game Go or complex card games, the academics argue that players' actions become less rational and that it is hard to find optimal strategies.

This research could also have implications for the financial markets. Many economists base financial predictions of the stock market on equilibrium theory -- assuming that traders are infinitely intelligent and rational.