Weakly dominated strategy

A strategy is weakly dominated if another gives at least as much payoff against every opponent strategy and strictly more against at least one. Unlike a strictly dominated strategy, it may remain a best response to opponents who never choose a strategy where the comparison is strict. Thus weak domination does not exclude equilibrium strategies.

In the zero-sum game with row payoff matrix $\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right)$, the second row is weakly dominated by the first. Nevertheless second row and first column form a Nash equilibrium: both rows tie against that column, and both columns tie against that row. Weak dominance therefore cannot be used to discard all possible equilibrium strategies without further qualifications.