Game Theory: From Chess to Life

Elections, conflicts, and deals often look like a set of random decisions, but almost always they are driven by the logic of expectations: each participant chooses an action, taking into account what others will do. Game theory helps formalize such situations and explain why in some cases the parties converge to a stable outcome, while in others they get stuck in conflict. This is especially visible where the stakes are high: in negotiations, company competition, political scenarios, and scientific models of behavior. In the program, you will cover core concepts and tools: payoff matrices, strategies and payoffs, dominant strategies and iterated elimination, as well as Nash equilibrium as a criterion of stability of mutual expectations. Separate topics focus on the prisoner’s dilemma, the difference between cooperation and betrayal, and how the outcome changes in repeated interactions. You will learn to read typical constructions from practice: “MAD” and deterrence logic, auctions and bidding strategies, and evolutionary stability—why some behavioral types become fixed in a population. Throughout the course, you will connect formal results with interpretation in real-world contexts. The methodology is built around short case discussions and step-by-step logical checks: what exactly is assumed about rationality, what equilibria are possible, and why some intuitive decisions do not hold up under analysis. Typical mistakes are addressed separately: confusing “best response” with “optimal for everyone,” ignoring alternative equilibria, and replacing assumptions about other participants’ behavior with one’s own preferences. You will also learn to formulate questions to the model before drawing conclusions. The material will be useful for curious adults, managers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and students who want to understand choices, conflicts, and deals through the logic of Nash and von Neumann. Especially suitable for those who are familiar with “The Game of Imitation” but have not worked through the prisoner’s dilemma and the basic mechanisms behind stable outcomes. By the end, you will be able to: identify dominance and stable strategies, find Nash equilibria in simple payoff matrices, explain why cooperation can be beneficial and why it is not always realized, and interpret results in political, business, and scientific narratives. You will receive a glossary of key terms and the skill to translate a formal model into clear conclusions about how the parties behave.