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Backward Induction
Backward induction is the process of reasoning backwards in time, from the end of a problem or situation, to determine a sequence of optimal actions. It proceeds by examining the last point at which a decision is to be made and then identifying what action would be most optimal at that moment. Using this information, one can then determine what to do at the second-to-last time of decision. This process continues backwards until one has determined the best action for every possible situation (i.e. for every possible information set) at every point in time. Backward induction was first used in 1875 by Arthur Cayley, who uncovered the method while trying to solve the infamous Secretary problem. In the mathematical optimization method of dynamic programming, backward induction is one of the main methods for solving the Bellman equation. In game theory, backward induction is a method used to compute subgame perfect equilibria in sequential games. The only difference is that optimizat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Information Set (game Theory)
In game theory, an information set is a set that, for a particular player, given what that player has observed shows the decision vertices available to the player which are undistinguishable to them at the current point in the game. For a better idea on decision vertices, refer to Figure 1. If the game has perfect information, every information set contains only one member, namely the point actually reached at that stage of the game, since each player knows the exact mix of chance moves and player strategies up to the current point in the game. Otherwise, it is the case that some players cannot be sure exactly what has taken place so far in the game and what their position is. Information sets are used in extensive form games and are often depicted in game trees. Game trees show the path from the start of a game and the subsequent paths that can be made depending on each player's next move. Information sets can be easily depicted in game trees to display each player's possible move ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zero-sum
Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other. In other words, player one's gain is equivalent to player two's loss, therefore the net improvement in benefit of the game is zero. If the total gains of the participants are added up, and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. Thus, cutting a cake, where taking a more significant piece reduces the amount of cake available for others as much as it increases the amount available for that taker, is a zero-sum game if all participants value each unit of cake equally. Other examples of zero-sum games in daily life include games like poker, chess, and bridge where one person gains and another person loses, which results in a zero-net benefit for every player. In the markets and financial instruments, futures contracts and options are zero-sum games as well. In c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rationality
Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ability, as in rational animal, to a psychological process, like reasoning, to mental states, such as beliefs and intentions, or to persons who possess these other forms of rationality. A thing that lacks rationality is either ''arational'', if it is outside the domain of rational evaluation, or ''irrational'', if it belongs to this domain but does not fulfill its standards. There are many discussions about the essential features shared by all forms of rationality. According to reason-responsiveness accounts, to be rational is to be responsive to reasons. For example, dark clouds are a reason for taking an umbrella, which is why it is rational for an agent to do so in response. An important rival to this approach are coherence-based accoun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nash Equilibrium
In game theory, the Nash equilibrium, named after the mathematician John Nash, is the most common way to define the solution of a non-cooperative game involving two or more players. In a Nash equilibrium, each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players, and no one has anything to gain by changing only one's own strategy. The principle of Nash equilibrium dates back to the time of Cournot, who in 1838 applied it to competing firms choosing outputs. If each player has chosen a strategy an action plan based on what has happened so far in the game and no one can increase one's own expected payoff by changing one's strategy while the other players keep their's unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices constitutes a Nash equilibrium. If two players Alice and Bob choose strategies A and B, (A, B) is a Nash equilibrium if Alice has no other strategy available that does better than A at maximizing her payoff in response to Bob choosing B, and Bob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subgame Perfect Equilibrium
In game theory, a subgame perfect equilibrium (or subgame perfect Nash equilibrium) is a refinement of a Nash equilibrium used in dynamic games. A strategy profile is a subgame perfect equilibrium if it represents a Nash equilibrium of every subgame of the original game. Informally, this means that at any point in the game, the players' behavior from that point onward should represent a Nash equilibrium of the continuation game (i.e. of the subgame), no matter what happened before. Every finite extensive game with perfect recall has a subgame perfect equilibrium. Perfect recall is a term introduced by Harold W. Kuhn in 1953 and ''"equivalent to the assertion that each player is allowed by the rules of the game to remember everything he knew at previous moves and all of his choices at those moves"''. A common method for determining subgame perfect equilibria in the case of a finite game is backward induction. Here one first considers the last actions of the game and determ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subgame
In game theory, a subgame is any part (a subset) of a game that meets the following criteria (the following terms allude to a game described in extensive form): #It has a single initial node that is the only member of that node's information set (i.e. the initial node is in a singleton information set). #If a node is contained in the subgame then so are all of its successors. #If a node in a particular information set is in the subgame then all members of that information set belong to the subgame. It is a notion used in the solution concept of subgame perfect Nash equilibrium, a refinement of the Nash equilibrium that eliminates non-credible threats. The key feature of a subgame is that it, when seen in isolation, constitutes a game in its own right. When the initial node of a subgame is reached in a larger game, players can concentrate only on that subgame; they can ignore the history of the rest of the game (provided they know what subgame they are playing). This is the i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Normal Form Game Joker Terminator
Normal(s) or The Normal(s) may refer to: Film and television * ''Normal'' (2003 film), starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson * ''Normal'' (2007 film), starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Kevin Zegers, Callum Keith Rennie, and Andrew Airlie * ''Normal'' (2009 film), an adaptation of Anthony Neilson's 1991 play ''Normal: The Düsseldorf Ripper'' * ''Normal!'', a 2011 Algerian film * ''The Normals'' (film), a 2012 American comedy film * "Normal" (''New Girl''), an episode of the TV series Mathematics * Normal (geometry), an object such as a line or vector that is perpendicular to a given object * Normal basis (of a Galois extension), used heavily in cryptography * Normal bundle * Normal cone, of a subscheme in algebraic geometry * Normal coordinates, in differential geometry, local coordinates obtained from the exponential map (Riemannian geometry) * Normal distribution, the Gaussian continuous probability distribution * Normal equations, describing the solution of the linear least sq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extensive-form Game
An extensive-form game is a specification of a game in game theory, allowing (as the name suggests) for the explicit representation of a number of key aspects, like the sequencing of players' possible moves, their choices at every decision point, the (possibly imperfect) information each player has about the other player's moves when they make a decision, and their payoffs for all possible game outcomes. Extensive-form games also allow for the representation of incomplete information in the form of chance events modeled as " moves by nature". Finite extensive-form games Some authors, particularly in introductory textbooks, initially define the extensive-form game as being just a game tree with payoffs (no imperfect or incomplete information), and add the other elements in subsequent chapters as refinements. Whereas the rest of this article follows this gentle approach with motivating examples, we present upfront the finite extensive-form games as (ultimately) constructed here. This ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Normal-form Game
In game theory, normal form is a description of a ''game''. Unlike extensive form, normal-form representations are not graphical ''per se'', but rather represent the game by way of a matrix. While this approach can be of greater use in identifying strictly dominated strategies and Nash equilibria, some information is lost as compared to extensive-form representations. The normal-form representation of a game includes all perceptible and conceivable strategies, and their corresponding payoffs, for each player. In static games of complete, perfect information, a normal-form representation of a game is a specification of players' strategy spaces and payoff functions. A strategy space for a player is the set of all strategies available to that player, whereas a strategy is a complete plan of action for every stage of the game, regardless of whether that stage actually arises in play. A payoff function for a player is a mapping from the cross-product of players' strategy spaces to that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multi-stage Game
In game theory, a multi-stage game is a sequence of several simultaneous games played one after the other. This is a generalization of a repeated game In game theory, a repeated game is an extensive form game that consists of a number of repetitions of some base game (called a stage game). The stage game is usually one of the well-studied 2-person games. Repeated games capture the idea that a ...: a repeated game is a special case of a multi-stage game, in which the stage games are identical. Multi-Stage Game with Different Information Sets As an example, consider a two-stage game in which the stage game in ''Figure 1'' is played in each of two periods: The payoff to each player is the simple sum of the payoffs of both games. Players cannot observe the action of the other player within a round; however, at the beginning of Round 2, Player 2 finds out about Player 1's action in Round 1, while Player 1 does not find out about Player 2's action in Round 1. For Player 1, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Well-defined
In mathematics, a well-defined expression or unambiguous expression is an expression whose definition assigns it a unique interpretation or value. Otherwise, the expression is said to be ''not well defined'', ill defined or ''ambiguous''. A function is well defined if it gives the same result when the representation of the input is changed without changing the value of the input. For instance, if ''f'' takes real numbers as input, and if ''f''(0.5) does not equal ''f''(1/2) then ''f'' is not well defined (and thus not a function). The term ''well defined'' can also be used to indicate that a logical expression is unambiguous or uncontradictory. A function that is not well defined is not the same as a function that is undefined. For example, if ''f''(''x'') = 1/''x'', then the fact that ''f''(0) is undefined does not mean that the ''f'' is ''not'' well defined – but that 0 is simply not in the domain of ''f''. Example Let A_0,A_1 be sets, let A = A_0 \cup A_1 and "define" f: A \ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Game Tree
In the context of Combinatorial game theory, which typically studies sequential games with perfect information, a game tree is a graph representing all possible game states within such a game. Such games include well-known ones such as chess, checkers, Go, and tic-tac-toe. This can be used to measure the complexity of a game, as it represents all the possible ways a game can pan out. Due to the large game trees of complex games such as chess, algorithms that are designed to play this class of games will use partial game trees, which makes computation feasible on modern computers. Various methods exist to solve game trees. If a complete game tree can be generated, a deterministic algorithm, such as backward induction or retrograde analysis can be used. Randomized algorithms and minimax algorithms such as MCTS can be used in cases where a complete game tree is not feasible. Understanding the game tree To better understand the game tree, it can be thought of as a technique for an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
