Hooking up girls in the bar is definitely not the best example in describing game theory.<BR>The prisoners' dilemma is a better one.<BR><BR>Two thieves are captured. Each has to choose whether or not to confess the other.<BR>If neither man confesses, then both will serve one year. If each confesses the other, <BR>both will go to prison for 10 years. However, if one thief confesses the other, and the <BR>other one does not confess, the one who has collaborated with the police will go free, while the other thief will go to prison for 20 years on the maximum charge.<BR><BR>The strategies in this case are: confess or don't confess. The penalties are the sentences<BR>served. We can express all this compactly in a "payoff table" of a kind that has become <BR>pretty standard in game theory. Here is the payoff table for the Prisoners' Dilemma game:<BR> T2<BR> confess don't<BR> confess (10, 10) (0,20)<BR>T1 <BR> don't (20,0) (1,1)<BR>T1 stands for theif A, who is row player here; T2 thief B, column player;<BR>The rational solution here: they both confess and go to prison for 10 years each.<BR><BR>Of course this is the simpliest example on game theory, which was first researched<BR>by John Von Neuman (hehe, you should know this genius) and Oscar Morgenstern<BR>(a economist to my knowledge), and improved , perfected by Nash, who won<BR>NObel prize in economics for his efforts and contribution in game theory. <BR> |