Games orbits play and obstructions to Borel reducibility

We introduce a new, game-theoretic approach to anti-classification results for orbit equivalence relations. Within this framework, we give a short conceptual proof of Hjorth’s turbulence theorem. We also introduce a new dynamical criterion providing an obstruction to classification by orbits of CLI groups. We apply this criterion to the relation of equality of countable sets of reals, and the relations of unitary conjugacy of unitary and selfadjoint operators on the separable infinite-dimensional Hilbert space.