Game Theory

Ok, so you sit down with a person to play this in real life. The rules are fully explained to both players. First you have to figure out, does this opponent understand game theory, and will only trade a 1, or are they going to play sub-optimally?

You’ve decided that you believe your opponent will play sub-optimally and they are willing to trade a non-1. What do you think they will trade? Someone of reasonable intelligence who doesn’t put too much thought into the game will probably trade a 1, 2, or 3, probably not a 4, 5, or 6. In that case if they are willing to trade, you can assume their card is 1, 2, or 3. Of course, if you are willing to trade, that means you also have 1, 2, or 3.

If you have 3, you’re not willing to trade with someone also willing to trade, since they can’t have the 3, you have it. You’re basically guaranteed to be losing that one.
If you have a 2, you’re going for a 50/50 that they have a 3. There is a bit more weight on the chance of them having a 1, though, in case you were wrong about their ability to understand game theory.
If you have a 1, you would have traded anyway no matter if the other person understands the game theory or not.

If you believe your opponent is foolish, the only major change in strategy is that you might be willing to trade a 2 a little less than half the time. The other trades you are willing to make, your opponent is not willing.

Look at Modern Art. A lot of players will literally bid more than they could possibly make on a painting. There is no universe where that action makes sense. It is never a good idea. It is obviously a horrible idea. The game makes that explicit. The rules make it explicit. The information on the table makes it explicit.

But it happens all the time. I can win a game of Modern Art by targeting someone who I think will act foolishly.

I think this is a different scenario. In the game of 6 there is no obfuscation of value. Even a child who understands numbers can understand a 6 is the strongest.

In Modern Art I think people fail because they do not know how to calculate how much they could possibly make on a painting. They have no heuristic for determining value and go on their gut instinct. If you had a digital edition that put numbers on each painting showing players exactly how much the paintings could be worth, I don’t think you would see people bidding more than the maximum.

Let’s do “How to win at Modern Art”.

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Game theory applied to searching for aliens:
https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2020/08/05/planck-frequencies-as-schelling-points-in-seti/

Dr. Wright writes a lot about SETI.

I am not sure if this was a TotD or not but just in case…

In games and in life, having a spine is the key.