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Two people can each have a clear incentive to choose an outcome that leaves both worse off. The prisoner's dilemma isolates this tension between individual best responses and Pareto efficiency. For example, two partners can each save effort by withholding a promised contribution, yet both would prefer a successful joint project to mutual withholding. The model applies when each person's payoffs really have the ordering below; the names “cooperate” and “defect” alone do not establish a prisoner's dilemma.

In the symmetric two-player normal-form game, each player chooses cooperation $C$ or defection $D$ simultaneously, without observing the other's current choice. The four payoffs are the mutual-cooperation reward $R$, mutual-defection punishment $P$, sole-defector temptation $T$, and sole-cooperator payoff $S$, with $T>R>P>S$. Defection is a strictly dominant strategy: it beats cooperation against either opposing pure strategy. This definition and the resulting one-shot Nash equilibrium are discussed in Steven Kuhn, Prisoner's Dilemma, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, section 1.

Take the concrete payoffs $T=5$, $R=3$, $P=1$, $S=0$. Each entry below gives the row player's payoff followed by the column player's payoff:

For the row player, switching from $C$ to $D$ improves the payoff from $3$ to $5$ against $C$, and from $0$ to $1$ against $D$. The column player has the same comparisons, so $D$ is a strictly dominant strategy for each. Even against a mixed strategy choosing $C$ with probability $q$, the expected payoff advantage is $2q+(1-q)=1+q>0$. Thus cooperation cannot appear with positive probability in a best response, and $(D,D)$ is the unique one-shot Nash equilibrium, including mixed strategies.

At $(D,D)$, a unilateral deviation to $C$ lowers the deviator's payoff from $1$ to $0$. A joint change to $(C,C)$ instead raises both payoffs from $1$ to $3$: mutual cooperation Pareto dominates mutual defection, making the Nash equilibrium fail Pareto efficiency. A Nash equilibrium tests unilateral deviations, so it need not maximize shared gains. This is the useful lesson: improving the available outcome may require changing incentives, rather than telling each participant to choose a better best response.

The additional inequality $2R\ge T+S$ says that mutual cooperation gives each player at least as much average payoff as equal-time alternation between the two asymmetric outcomes. It is a further assumption, not a consequence of $T>R>P>S$. Here it holds strictly: $6>5$, and alternating exploitation gives each player average payoff $5/2<3$. This comparison concerns equal-time averages, not every discounted sequence. See Kuhn, section 3, on the additional cardinal-payoff condition.

A pure strategy is a definite, complete plan for a player's choices. In a game with one simultaneous choice, it selects one available action with certainty: heads or tails in matching pennies, for example. In a sequential game it specifies an action at every situation where that player could be called upon to move, including situations never reached when the plan is followed. The plan can use only information available to the player: indistinguishable decision situations must prescribe the same action. An action at one such situation is only part of the plan.

If $S_i$ is player $i$'s set of pure strategies, the payoff $u_i(s_i,s_{-i})$ depends on the whole strategy profile. Thus the same pure strategy can be a best response against one opposing choice and perform poorly against another. A dominant strategy is the stronger case in which it is a best response against every opposing strategy profile.

A repeated game plays a stage game over several rounds, allowing actions to depend on earlier observations. Its payoff convention must specify a finite horizon, a discount factor or a long-time average; these need not have identical invasion properties.

The replicator equation says that a strategy grows in frequency when its expected payoff exceeds the population's current mean payoff. It is an ordinary differential equation for a composition, rather than for total population size. The subtraction of the mean is what makes relative success matter: even a type growing in absolute number can shrink as a fraction if other types grow faster.

Let $x_i(t)$ be the frequency of pure strategy $i$, with $n$ available pure strategies andIn a symmetric bimatrix game, let the payoff matrix $A$ have entry $a_{ij}$ equal to the payoff to strategy $i$ against $j$. The other player's payoff in that encounter is $a_{ji}$: symmetry between player roles does not require $A=A^T$. Uniform random encounters give the expected payoffs and their population meanAfter choosing the time unit so that the growth-rate scale is one, the continuous-time replicator equation isHere a payoff is measured on a scale proportional to net growth per unit time, not merely as an arbitrary preference ranking. More generally one can specify locally Lipschitz frequency-dependent payoffs $f_i(x)$ directly; the same equation with $\bar{f}={\sum }_i{x}_i{f}_i$ then defines a unique frequency trajectory. The linear pairwise model and its reproductive interpretation are given in Taylor and Jonker (1978), sections 2–3; the formulas here also follow by the following direct normalization.

Suppose the number $N_i$ of type $i$ obeys ${\dot{N}}_i=N_i[b(t)+f_i(x)]$, where the baseline $b(t)$ is identical for all types. Set $N={\sum }_i{N}_i>0$ and $x_i=N_i/N$. The quotient rule givesThus the common baseline cancels. Adding the same constant to every entry of $A$ leaves the replicator equation unchanged; multiplying $A$ by a positive constant changes only the speed along trajectories. The same payoff matrix can therefore describe frequency evolution at different growth-rate baselines and time scales.

The probability simplex is invariant in forward time. On ${\sum }_i{x}_i=1$,Normalization alone would not exclude negative frequencies. Nonnegativity follows as well: along a solution,An absent type remains absent, and a positive frequency remains positive at every finite time. For the fixed payoff matrix model, bounded rates on the compact probability simplex give global forward solutions. Frequencies can still tend to zero as $t\to \infty$. Each face is invariant, so this model has no spontaneous introduction of new pure strategies; mutation or outside introductions would require additional terms. For two present types the logarithm of their frequency ratio satisfies $\frac{d}{dt}\log (x_i/x_j)=f_i-f_j$, directly expressing the accumulated payoff advantage.

For two pure strategies, write the composition as $(x,1-x)$, where $x$ is the frequency of strategy 1, and letTheir payoff difference and the resulting scalar ordinary differential equation areIn the interior $0<x<1$, the sign of the payoff difference determines the direction of motion. The endpoints are always equilibrium points, and an additional interior equilibrium point exists precisely when the affine payoff difference has a zero strictly between them. At a simple interior zero $x_{\ast }$, $F^{\prime }(x_{\ast })=x_{\ast }(1-x_{\ast })\Delta f^{\prime }(x_{\ast })$: a negative value gives asymptotic stability, a positive value gives instability. At the endpoints $F^{\prime }(0)=b-d$ and $F^{\prime }(1)=c-a$, with stability understood relative to $[0,1]$. A zero derivative requires examining the actual flow rather than this strict sign test.

For an original coordination game, imagine two conventions that reward matching, with convention 1 giving the larger matching reward. ChooseThe crossing is $x_{\ast }=2/5$. Below it, convention 1 loses frequency; above it, convention 1 gains frequency. The endpoint equilibrium points $0$ and $1$ have one-sided asymptotic stability, while $2/5$ is unstable: the corresponding derivatives are $-2,-3$ and $6/5$, respectively. Every initial $0<x(0)<2/5$ tends to $0$, every initial $2/5<x(0)<1$ tends to $1$, and exactly $x(0)=2/5$ stays there. Even the convention with the larger matching reward can disappear if it starts below the threshold. This is bistability, not selection of a universally best convention.

The compositions giving a symmetric Nash equilibrium in this coordination game are the two pure conventions and the mixed composition $(2/5,3/5)$. Both pure conventions are evolutionarily stable strategies because a mutant convention has strictly lower payoff against the pure resident. The mixed symmetric Nash equilibrium is not an evolutionarily stable strategy: against that resident both conventions tie, but after a pure convention-1 mutant is introduced its payoff advantage is $5(x-2/5)>0$. Equal payoffs at a symmetric Nash equilibrium need not provide resistance to invasion or asymptotic stability.

For an original coexistence model, choose payoffs making each convention advantageous when sufficiently rare:Here $x_{\ast }=3/4$ attracts every initial composition with both types present: $\dot{x}>0$ below it and $\dot{x}<0$ above it. The interior derivative is $F^{\prime }(3/4)=-3/4$, while $F^{\prime }(0)=3$ and $F^{\prime }(1)=1$ make both endpoints unstable to introduction of the other type. The endpoints nevertheless remain stationary if the other type is exactly absent; the attraction statement excludes those boundary initial states.

The sole symmetric Nash equilibrium in this coexistence model is $p=(3/4,1/4)$. It is also an evolutionarily stable strategy. For any different mixed strategy $q=(y,1-y)$, the first comparison in the two-condition criterion for evolutionary stability ties because $Ap=(3/2,3/2)$. Its second comparison is strictly positive:Thus restoring frequency feedback can protect a mixture even though all present types earn equal payoffs at the mixture. Coexistence here means different individuals using different pure strategies; it does not require every individual to randomize with a mixed strategy.

Frequency evolution need not increase the mean payoff. In the coexistence example $\bar{f}=5x-4x^2$, whose maximum occurs at $x=5/8$, whereas the attracting composition is $3/4$. For $5/8<x<3/4$, the frequency $x$ increases while $\frac{d}{dt}\bar{f}=(5-8x)\dot{x}<0$. Individual payoff advantages drive the equation; maximizing collective mean payoff is a different optimization problem.

More generally, a rest point only equalizes payoffs among present types: $x_i>0$ implies $(Ax{)}_i=x^{T}Ax$. A symmetric Nash equilibrium additionally requires $(Ax{)}_i\le x^{T}Ax$ for every absent type. All vertices are rest points even when an absent type could invade. For finite symmetric bimatrix games, a rest point with Lyapunov stability on the full probability simplex is a symmetric Nash equilibrium; an interior trajectory that converges has a symmetric Nash equilibrium as its limit. These are conditional results, not a convergence theorem for every trajectory. See Cressman and Tao (2014), Theorem 1.

The rock paper scissors payoff matrix gives an explicit obstruction to universal convergence:Since $A^T=-A$, $x^{T}Ax=0$, and in the interior $\frac{d}{dt}\log (x_1{x}_2{x}_3)={\sum }_i(Ax{)}_i=0$. Thus $x_1{x}_2{x}_3$ is conserved. Its maximum on the probability simplex occurs only at $(1/3,1/3,1/3)$, the unique symmetric Nash equilibrium, so an interior trajectory starting elsewhere cannot converge to that composition. Every other interior product level is a closed curve without a rest point, giving a periodic orbit. The existence of these cycles is also discussed in Cressman and Tao (2014), Example 1. The useful lesson is to inspect the specified payoff feedback and dynamical system, rather than infer convergence from the existence of an evolutionarily stable strategy or a Nash equilibrium.