The game is degenerate in the nondegeneracy of a bimatrix game sense. Against the first player's pure strategy , the second player's choices and are both best responses, with payoff four. A mixed strategy of support size one therefore has two pure best responses. The usual Lemke-Howson algorithm path needs additional tie handling or perturbation in such a game; the zero-sum game structure gives a simpler direct linear program.
Add five to every entry of the first player's matrix, obtaining
This does not change either player's best responses or Nash equilibria; it raises the game value by five. Since all entries are positive, its value is positive. If is a row mixed strategy guaranteeing , put . Then and .
Conversely any feasible has , and guarantees payoff in the shifted game. Maximizing that guaranteed payoff is therefore equivalent to minimizing under , . These are precisely the displayed constraints. The dual program maximizes subject to , ; normalizing an optimal gives the column strategy. This is positive-payoff linear programming for a matrix game.