Game Theory: From Chess to Life

Game theory turns everyday conflicts into clear models: when your outcome depends on what others choose, “best” decisions depend on expectations about their behavior. It helps explain why cooperation can be rational, why betrayal can be tempting, and why some outcomes persist even when everyone can see the alternatives. You’ll connect classic puzzles like the prisoner’s dilemma to real settings such as elections, negotiations, auctions, and evolutionary competition, where incentives shape outcomes more than intentions. You’ll build the core vocabulary step by step: players, strategies, payoffs, and payoff matrices. You’ll learn Nash equilibrium as a stability concept, dominant strategies as a decision rule, and mixed strategies when no pure choice works. The programme then compares cooperation and betrayal through repeated interaction, including how credibility and future consequences change incentives. You’ll also cover von Neumann’s perspective on strategic reasoning and apply it to concrete domains: MAD-style deterrence logic in politics, bidding and equilibrium reasoning in auctions, and evolutionary stability in biology. Along the way, you’ll practice interpreting equilibria rather than memorizing them. Methodologically, you’ll work through small, structured scenarios and translate them into game form: identify who chooses, what they can do, and what each outcome pays. Common pitfalls are assuming that “best for me” automatically means “best overall,” confusing equilibrium with fairness, and treating one-shot games as if they were repeated. You’ll also learn to test conclusions by changing assumptions—such as information availability, number of players, or the possibility of retaliation—and observing how the equilibrium shifts. This course is designed for curious adults and for professionals who need a rigorous way to reason about elections, conflicts, and negotiations: managers planning incentives, entrepreneurs evaluating competitive offers, and students who have seen “The Imitation Game” but want the prisoner’s dilemma explained in plain terms. It also fits policy-minded readers who want to understand deterrence and strategic commitment without relying on slogans. By the end, you’ll be able to define and recognize Nash equilibrium, identify dominant strategies, and explain when cooperation is sustainable and when defection is rational. You’ll learn to model simple games, interpret payoffs, and justify conclusions using strategic reasoning. You’ll also gain a toolkit for reading real-world situations—auctions, deterrence, evolutionary competition, and negotiations—through the same logic of incentives and equilibrium.