Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 38 5 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The matrices obey , so both players' pure best response vectors have the form against opponent mixture . Against pure actions , the unique best responses are respectively . This three-cycle has no mutual best-response pair, so there is no pure Nash equilibrium.
In a game satisfying nondegeneracy of a bimatrix game, the two equilibrium strategy supports have equal cardinality: each support consists of best responses to the other strategy, so each size is at most the other. If both supports have size three, must have all coordinates equal. The first-minus-second and second-minus-third equations implyThis has no fully positive simplex solution. Thus both supports have size two.
For full support enumeration for a bimatrix game, denote the three possible supports by . On equal supports and , indifference requires respectively probabilities and , so those pairs fail. Equal support gives , whose omitted-action payoff is . The cross pair yieldswith and . Thus the supported actions are best responses. Its reversed pair is also an equilibrium. The remaining unordered cross pairs fail: for the necessary gives , so the opponent has a profitable action outside its support. For , the necessary opponent mixture on is , which is infeasible. Reversing either failed pair cannot rescue it.