Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/iii/paper-42/4/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 42 4 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use the PDF's entry , rather than the TeX aid's . To check nondegeneracy of a bimatrix game, every opponent strategy of support size must have at most pure best responses. Against each pure column, the unique best rows are respectively . Against each pure row, the unique best columns are respectively .
The only mixture making all three rows indifferent solves and , giving , which has support size three. Thus no two-column-support mixture has three best rows. For the other player, column strictly dominates column , because their payoff difference is , so three best columns are impossible. These observations cover all support sizes, proving the game is nondegenerate.
For the Lemke-Howson algorithm, use unnormalized strategy vectors in the polytopesA row label occurs at in or at in . A column label occurs at in or at in . The origin pair has all six labels.
Drop row label by increasing . Column is the first binding payoff constraint, at , so label becomes duplicated. Drop in by increasing ; row binds first, at , duplicating label . Drop in by increasing while keeping and the column- constraint binding. Since that constraint does not involve , stays . Column binds at , duplicating label .
Now drop in by increasing . Keep and row binding, so . Row reaches payoff at , earlier than row , which would bind at . The missing label returns, terminating the path. The successive vertex-label pairs areThe final pair is completely labelled and nonzero. Normalize each vector by its own sum to obtainThe row payoffs against are and the column payoffs against are . Both supported actions are best responses, so this is a Nash equilibrium, with payoffs .
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