Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-msc-in-advanced-computer-science-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/computational-game-theory/2/a/solution

Read the lower-left entry of each cell as player 1's payoff and the upper-right entry as player 2's payoff, as indicated by the source diagram. Against , player 1 strictly prefers because ; against , player 1 strictly prefers because . Against , player 2 strictly prefers because ; against , player 2 strictly prefers because . Thus the pure strategy Nash equilibria are
For a fully mixed strategy Nash equilibrium, write and . Player 1's expected payoffs from the two pure strategies are
Equality, required when both pure strategies have positive probability, gives
Player 2's corresponding expected payoffs are
so equality gives
Both probabilities lie strictly between zero and one. Hence the unique fully mixed strategy Nash equilibrium is
with complementary probabilities on and . Its expected payoffs are
These are all three Nash equilibria. There are no equilibria with just one player genuinely mixing: against each opposing pure strategy, the other player's best response is unique, so that player cannot mix. When both players mix, the two linear indifference equations have the unique solution just obtained. This is support enumeration for a bimatrix game with all possible supports checked.

New to topics? Read the docs here!