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16 - Theory 5: Sequential Games with Randomness

Erich Prisner
Affiliation:
Franklin University Switzerland
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Summary

RANDOM NIM(n, p) n stones lie on a board. As in NIM, Ann and Beth alternate in removing either one or two stones. The player who has to move but cannot (since there is no stone left) loses, and the payoffs are identical to those of NIM. However between moves, 0 or 1 stones are removed randomly, with probability p and 1 − p.

Student Activity Play RANDOM NIM(5,0.5) at least 20 times against the computer in the applet Nim7Rc. Put in the values 5 and 0.5 into the text field before you start. Try to win.

The game is sequential, with two players, but between moves of the players there are the random removals. It is a game that is sequential with randomness, and we discuss them in this chapter.

Extensive Form Extended

To describe and discuss sequential games with some random moves, we will merge the concept of extensive forms of sequential games as described in Chapter 8 with the concept of probability trees discussed in Chapter 12. In addition to the vertices that correspond to positions of the game where a player makes a decision, we need random vertices. There the random moves are performed and there are arcs to other vertices from them. These are the positions that can be reached from these random positions. The arcs are labeled by the appropriate probabilities to reach the other positions from the random position.

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Publisher: Mathematical Association of America
Print publication year: 2014

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