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A unilateral deviation changes only one player's strategy, holding the other players' strategies fixed. It is profitable if it strictly increases that player's payoff, or expected payoff for mixed strategies. The comparison does not allow the opponents to adjust in response to the deviation. In a sequential game, however, holding an opponent's complete pure strategy fixed still allows their prescribed actions to differ after different observed histories.

For a finite matrix zero-sum game, the value is the payoff that the maximizing player can guarantee and the minimizing player can prevent the payoff from exceeding, using mixed strategies. The common value of the two displayed optimizations exists by the minimax theorem. A pair of strategies can be verified directly by checking that every pure column pays the row mixture at least $v$ and every pure row earns at most $v$ against the column mixture.

A strategy giving at least as large a payoff as every alternative against every opponent strategy profile. Under the convention distinguishing weak dominance from complete payoff equivalence, require a strict advantage somewhere. In a two-action finite game, it suffices to check the opponent's pure strategies: expected payoff differences against an opponent's mixed strategy are weighted averages of those pure-action comparisons.

In a zero-sum game, the players' payoffs sum to zero at every pure strategy strategy profile. For two players this means $u_2=-u_1$: maximizing the column player's payoff is minimizing the row player's. A single payoff matrix $A$ therefore specifies a finite two-player matrix game, and independent mixed strategies $x,y$ give expected payoffs $x^{\mathsf{T}}Ay$ and $-x^{\mathsf{T}}Ay$.

Matching pennies and the usual rock paper scissors are two-player zero-sum games. The asymmetric coordination example is not: its total payoff is $5$ when choices match and $0$ otherwise. Applying a two-player minimax theorem to general bimatrix games would discard this possibility of shared gains. For a two-player zero-sum game, however, optimal mixed strategies guarantee the value of a zero-sum game, and pairing any two opposing optimal strategies gives a Nash equilibrium.