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Posted by GTG on March 26, 2008
Chelsea footballer Ashley Cole has been slapped with a six-month ban - not on the pitch, but on the bed - by his wife Cheryl for his infidelity, involving lots of booze and a hairdresser.
Unfortunately for Mrs Cole, game theory predicts that her strategy won’t work. Why not, and what should she do?
Posted in Game theory, Sports | Tagged: Ashley Cole, Cheryl Tweedy, Chelsea | 1 Comment »
Posted by GTG on March 11, 2008
or How game theory causes schizophrenia
The big problem with motivation and resolve, I think, is that they always come at the wrong times.
For example, at 11pm at night when my regret at wasting the entire day doing nothing is at its peak, I make up my mind to get up at 6am, get some exercise, attend all my lessons, and go to the library. But come 6am my resolve is nowhere to be found and I silence the alarm clock (violently), a preclude to yet another day spent on little more than breakfast, lunch, dinner and Facebook.
Most, if not all of us find ourselves in this rut: we set New Year resolutions, swear off cigarettes and purchase gym memberships today, but when it comes to crunch time we struggle with doing what we had previously been so motivated to do.
We can see this problem as a conflict between ourselves in different times. The present self may want to stop smoking, while the future self cannot resist the temptation of a Marlboro. Both selves exist, but not at the same time, and both act rationally.
Now that we have established two parties with competing interests, let the game begin.
Posted in Game theory | Tagged: self management | 5 Comments »
Posted by GTG on March 9, 2008
The school term is coming to an end, which means only two things: spring break is coming soon, and the end-of-term exams even sooner. The library is now jam-packed in the day, thousands of eyes straining over millions of words and figures and diagrams.
I can’t help but think: had the university set the exams really easy, all the time and effort spent on studying for a pass can be channeled towards something more productive instead (e.g. sleep, Facebook). We will undoubtedly all be happier, more contented students, with no loss to anyone. Sounds like a Pareto improvement to me.
So why do university profs like to set mind-numbing exams for their students? Game theory has an answer.
Posted in Everyday life, Game theory | No Comments »
Posted by GTG on March 3, 2008
The “free-dom” fighters at Techdirt have consistently hyped on the economics of free for books, music and the like, making the somewhat counter-intuitive case that producers can make more money by offering their goods for free. The latest post offers an example of an author enjoying increased sales of his books after offering a free e-book version online:
SciFi author John Scalzi just participated in publisher Tor’s recent effort to offer up free ebooks, and discovered an almost immediate boost in sales. He admits that there could be other factors involved, but tries to account for all of them, and concludes that it’s almost definitely the free ebooks that are driving the noticeable increase. So, here we are. Yet another example of it working.
While Techdirt’s arguments for “free” have been sound, especially with regards to the music industry (offer MP3s for free, use them to promote lucrative concerts), this example is a rather poor one.
For one, the free good (ebook) and the chargeable good (book) in this case are substitutes, not complements as is the case for MP3s and concerts. Secondly, Scalzi was able to increase sales by offering free versions of his book, but does that mean that all authors will sell more books when they all offer free versions of their books?
Looks to me like a classic case of the prisoner’s dilemma.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Game theory | 3 Comments »
Posted by GTG on February 29, 2008
Check out this article applying game theory to the NBA. Having established a correlation between better teamwork (more passing) and win percentage through the sheer force of mathematics, it goes on to analyse why some teams don’t pass as much as they should, even when it leads to better chances of winning.
Enter game theory, analysing a two-player team presented with two options (pass or shoot):
| Look to pass to open man | Be a chucker | |
|---|---|---|
| Look to pass to open man | win-win | lose much-win much |
| Be a chucker | win much-lose much | lose-lose |
Posted in Game theory, Sports | Tagged: Arsenal, EPL, Man Utd, NBA | No Comments »
