Looking for something to write about for my Econ 204 post, I stumbled upon gametheory.net—a comprehensive site on game theory (as its name obviously suggests).  The site has information about game theory books, a dictionary of game theory terms, links to news on game theory, a section on game theory in pop culture, and, of course, games you can play to test out the theories.

When you first come to the site, there are four options: educators, students, professionals, and geeks.  As you have probably quessed, being a Cornell student, I clicked on the link for geeks.  Toward the top of the geek page it says:

“In the children’s game Memory, players alternate turning over pairs of picture tiles trying to get a match. Game theory suggests that it is not always advantageous to turn over a known pair!”

This counterintuitive fact immediately piqued my interest; something I had never bothered to doubt (I mean, come on, what kid will not turn over a known pair) was not true according to game theory.  I searched around the site to see what other interesting things I could find.  Here are some of them:

New tack wins Prisoner’s Dilemma

This article answers one of last week’s homework questions (number 4, on repeated prisoner’s dilemma).  It discusses a new variation on a highly successful tactic called tit-for-tat.  In the classical tit-for-tat, a player cooperates for the first move and then copies the other player for each consecutive move.  This strategy has been proven to produce better results, than just playing the Nash equilibrium.  Where was this when I did my homework last week?

Is the key to Survivor in ‘non-cooperative games’?

Another interesting article on the Nash equilibrium.  This one discusses the famous concept in the context of the TV show Survivor.

Game theory in film: Princess Bride

This well-known movie has a funny scene which has some game theory.  It involves bluffing and trying to figure out the other player’s strategy—albeit with an interesting twist at the end!