It is well known that the rock-paper-scissors game has no pure saddle point. Weshow that this holds more generally: A symmetric two-player zero-sum game hasa pure saddle point if and only if it is not a generalized rock-paper-scissors game.Moreover, we show that every finite symmetric...

We show that for many classes of symmetric two-player games, the simple decision rule \imitate-the-best" can hardly be beaten by any other decision rule. Weprovide necessary and sufficient conditions for imitation to be unbeatable and showthat it can only be beaten by much in games that are of...

It is known that there are uncoupled learning heuristics leading to Nash equilibrium in all finite games. Why should players use such learning heuristics and where could they come from? We show that there is no uncoupled learning heuristic leading to Nash equilibrium in all finite games that a...

We characterize the class of symmetric two-player games in which tit-for-tat cannot be beaten even by very sophisticated opponents in a repeated game. It turns out to be the class of exact potential games. More generally, there is a class of simple imitation rules that includes tit-for-tat but...

We provide an evolutionary foundation to evidence that in some situations humans maintain either optimistic or pessimistic attitudes towards uncertainty and are ignorant to relevant aspects of the environment. Players in strategic games face Knightian uncertainty about opponents' actions and...

It is known that there are uncoupled learning heuristics leading to Nash equilibrium in all finite games. Why should players use such learning heuristics and where could they come from? We show that there is no uncoupled learning heuristic leading to Nash equilibrium in all finite games that a...

We show that for many classes of symmetric two-player games, the simple decision rule "imitate-the-best" can hardly be beaten by any other decision rule. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for imitation to be unbeatable and show that it can only be beaten by much in games that are of...

We provide an evolutionary foundation to evidence that in some situations humans maintain optimistic or pessimistic attitudes towards uncertainty and are ignorant to relevant aspects of the environment. Players in strategic games face Knightian uncertainty about opponents' actions and maximize...

We define a cautious version of extensive-form rationalizability for generalized extensive- form games with unawareness that we call prudent rationalizability. It is an extensive-form analogue of iterated admissibility. In each round of the procedure, for each tree and each information set of a...

We study experimentally persuasion games in which a sender (e.g., a seller) with private information provides verifiable but potentially vague information (e.g., about the quality of a product) to a receiver (e.g., a buyer). Various theoretical solution concepts such as sequential equilibrium or...