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Game Theory 101

gametheory101.com

167 pointsmbowcock18 comments

What I really like about Khan Academy is that Sal takes away all the magic. The limit as x approaches 0 of sinx/x isn't 1 because "that's the formula," it's because (insert Sal's 15 minute proof showing the graphs and allowing you to intuit the result).

In contrast, I just watched the first two lessons of this series and so far it feels like a lot of magic. It's just a "rule" of strictly dominated strategies that each of player 2's middle column values are larger than their end column values, so we can eliminate the whole column. Why is this? What do those values represent?

For anyone who has watched more of the videos, does the series improve in this regard?

When I started making the videos back in 2009, my concern was just showing how to solve games. Details were details, especially since your average YouTube viewer does not have much an attention spam that lasts past five minutes.

But you're right, the other things are important. I eventually get to them in some of the later (and longer) videos, I talk about them in the textbook. The first lesson is a free PDF on my academic website wjspaniel.wordpress.com, so you can check it out if you are interested.

Thanks for the feedback.

William

I actually think this approach to game theory is better for the uninitiated trying to get their hands dirty with some fun problems in game theory without needing the math or economic background. He doesn't go very in depth with the proofs but those aren't really needed. Most of the examples he gives are more fun mental exercises that have to be talked and reasoned through, which really is the essence of game theory. Once you have that understanding of backwards induction, it's then much easier to move into the more complex problems (dynamic, incomplete, asymmetric information).

To be able to grasp a problem like pirates after watching a few videos is very cool and much more practical, where the Yale course jumps directly into Cournot/Bertrand games after five lectures. If you have no prior knowledge of economics, it would be much harder to visualize things like competition and marginal cost in this context. This online course is really just a primer for bigger topics.

I am about to take a Game Theory final tomorrow so this post if very relevant :)

The Yale Open Courses Game Theory class is also worth checking out. Material is taught in a very accessible manner.

http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/game-theory/

Hahah I was the first reply with the same link... Are you taking the final tomorrow at Yale?

Ya I took the exam yesterday at Yale. Pretty long and difficult, everyone stayed for the full 3.5 hours. Professor Polak is a firm believer of having a good spread of scores and so made the exam long and challenging. All in all it was a good class, I just wish he spent more time defining things in a more rigorous way rather than bombarding us with intuition.

Wow, this is a nice effort Mr Willian Spaniel did here. I just watched some classes, and they are very nice spoken and clear. It's just like Khan Academy!

But the most impressive is the textbook costs, only 99 cents or 2,99 cents! I think I will buy, watch the classes and wait for the stanford free class to make a better foundation in game theory.

Stanford will be continuing its tradition with online courses this spring and one of the classes they plan to host is an introduction to game theory: http://www.game-theory-class.org/index.php .

When I checked the Amazon US links, they're priced at 2.99 and 4.99, respectively. Are the .99 and 2.99 prices available to some countries only?

I was not logged in to Amazon when I first checked the links. The prices when not logged in were 2.99 and 4.99. When I logged in, the prices became .99 and 2.99.

The prices are $3.44 and $5.74 for me (when logged into Amazon US). That's a nice +250% price hike for us Europeans!

Came here to say this and I accidentally bought the basics version instead of the more extensive one.

Oh well, I really liked the YouTube videos so the author more than deserves it. It's just that those obvious price hikes get under my skin especially for e-books. Or is it that Amazon includes any taxes they have to pay to the EU in the price?

Amazon is paying VAT in the EU, but the last time I checked, the tax wasn't quite in the hundreds of percents. This is just Amazon taking extra profit because they can, and the author is only getting paid based on the $0.99 and $2.99 price points.

2.99 euros on amazon.fr for the extended one, looks reasonable ( $2.99 + VAT ).

Should've seen this a couple of weeks ago when it was the topic for AI class. Will probably use this as a reviewer for the finals. Thanks! :)

I used that website for my micro econ final 2 days ago

If you skip classes to work on your side project, that web site is must see.

I couldn't tell from the first chapter, but are there a lot of equations? If so, would be a big plus for me.

Game theory doesn't become computationally intensive until you reach mixed strategies, which start about half way through the first chapter. (If this comment is referring to the PDF preview on my website, the PDF only contains the first lesson.)

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