Game Theory

This is a fun puzzle that I have shared a few times before, including last year, and in connection with The Dark Knight. TED-Ed made an animated video and thought it was a good time to share again.…

Note: this is a statistics topic rather than a game theory post At the supermarket checkout, should you pick the shorter line or the line where people have fewer items? I have gotten into heated ar…

I am thrilled to add another book to my list of the best game theory books. The book is Introducing Game Theory: A Graphic Guide by economists Dr. Ivan and Dr. Tuvana Pastine and illustrated by Tom…

image by Ginny. CC BY-SA 2.0 Today’s post is a short mention of a new study. It appears children are trusting and innocent, but they can quickly learn to deceive in a game where cheating is r…

I usually buy a gallon jug (~4 liters) of vinegar to clean my floors and sinks, so I buy the cheapest generic brand. But recently I have been thinking about using vinegar for salad dressings and pi…

Let’s say there is an election with 5 candidates A, B, C, D, E. You obtain a list from each voter with an honest ranking of the 5 candidates. The voters all fall into six categories of rankin…

In standard tic-tac-toe, player one (X) and player two (O) are each trying to make 3 in a row. If both play optimally, the game ends in a draw. Now consider a variation: player one wins if either X…

I originally published this post in 2014. With the 2017 NBA Finals underway, I am re-posting it with slight edits and updates It’s double overtime in the NBA finals. There’s one second …

Today’s post is not game theory but more about strategic thinking in analyzing “expert advice.” Do you follow advice from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a book that sold ove…

For long-time readers, I posted about this topic 8 years ago and it was compiled into my first puzzle book. I wanted to share the topic again because I came across a video from TippingPointMath on …

Many traffic problems are caused by human error: drivers that speed, recklessly merge, or ignore traffic signs and lights. Some drivers intentionally make bad decisions at the wheel; others are not…

Alice, Bob and Charlie are sharing an apartment that has 3 rooms of possibly unequal size. The landlord asks for a total rent of $1000. How do they split the rooms and the rent so that everyone is …

There’s a new game theory study from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business that is pretty interesting. The experiment involves the following game (read it carefully, it’s not a p…

image by Ron Cogswell. CC BY 2.0 The Chicago Cubs won their first World Series championship since 1908. To commemorate the end of a 108 years drought, they are gifting 1,908 employees with extravag…

Last week United overbooked a flight and needed passengers in Chicago to give up a seat. After United was unable to find volunteers, airport security forcibly and violently removed a passenger. Wil…

Two years ago I wrote about an awesomely evil test question. Many people were enraged the professor could offer such a question, and others were in disbelief about the correct strategy I explained.…

Let’s play matching pennies. You have a coin and show a side, heads or tails, and I do the same thing simultaneously. As the Matcher, you win $1 from me if both of our coins show the same sid…