About this course: Popularized by movies such as "A Beautiful Mind," game theory is the mathematical modeling of strategic interaction among rational (and irrational) agents. Beyond what we call `games' in common language, such as chess, poker, soccer, etc., it includes the modeling of conflict among nations, political campaigns, competition among firms, and trading behavior in markets such as the NYSE. How could you begin to model keyword auctions, and peer to peer file-sharing networks, without accounting for the incentives of the people using them? The course will provide the basics: representing games and strategies, the extensive form (which computer scientists call game trees), Bayesian games (modeling things like auctions), repeated and stochastic games, and more. We'll include a variety of examples including classic games and a few applications. You can find a full syllabus and description of the course here: http://web.stanford.edu/~jacksonm/GTOC-Syllabus.html There is also an advanced follow-up course to this one, for people already familiar with game theory: https://www.coursera.org/learn/gametheory2/ You can find an introductory video here: http://web.stanford.edu/~jacksonm/Intro_Networks.mp4
Who is this class for: This course is aimed at students, researchers, and practitioners who wish to understand more about strategic interactions. You must be comfortable with mathematical thinking and rigorous arguments. Relatively little specific math is required; but you should be familiar with basic probability theory (for example, you should know what a conditional probability is), and some very light calculus would be helpful.
Created by: Stanford University, The University of British Columbia
Taught by: Matthew O. Jackson, Professor
Economics
Taught by: Kevin Leyton-Brown, Professor
Computer Science
Taught by: Yoav Shoham, Professor
Computer Science
| Level | Beginner |
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Week 1: Introduction and Overview
Introduction, overview, uses of game theory, some applications and examples, and formal definitions of: the normal form, payoffs, strategies, pure strategy Nash equilibrium, dominant strategies
11 videos, 2 readings, 1 practice quiz
- Video: Introductory Video
- Reading: Syllabus
- Video: 1-1 Game Theory Intro - TCP Backoff
- Discussion Prompt: Play the TCP game if you like
- Video: 1-2 Self-Interested Agents and Utility Theory
- Video: 1-3 Defining Games
- Video: 1-4 Examples of Games
- Discussion Prompt: Play some games after Lecture 1.4 if you like
- Video: 1-5 Nash Equilibrium Intro
- Video: 1-6 Strategic Reasoning
- Discussion Prompt: Play Keynes Beauty Contest Game if you like
- Video: 1-7 Best Response and Nash Equilibrium
- Video: 1-8 Nash Equilibrium of Example Games
- Video: 1-9 Dominant Strategies
- Video: 1-10 Pareto Optimality
- Practice Quiz: In-Video Quizzes Week 1
- Reading: A Brief Introduction to the Basics of Game Theory
Graded: Problem Set 1
WEEK 2
Week 2: Mixed-Strategy Nash Equilibrium
pure and mixed strategy Nash equilibria
7 videos, 1 practice quiz
- Video: 2-1 Mixed Strategies and Nash Equilibrium (I)
- Video: 2-2 Mixed Strategies and Nash Equilibrium (II)
- Video: 2-3 Computing Mixed Nash Equilibrium
- Video: 2-4 Hardness Beyond 2x2 Games - Basic
- Video: 2-4 Hardness Beyond 2x2 Games - Advanced
- Video: 2-5 Example: Mixed Strategy Nash
- Video: 2-6 Data: Professional Sports and Mixed Strategies
- Practice Quiz: In-Video Quizzes Week 2
Graded: Problem Set 2
WEEK 3
Week 3: Alternate Solution Concepts
Iterative removal of strictly dominated strategies, minimax strategies and the minimax theorem for zero-sum game, correlated equilibria
6 videos, 1 practice quiz
- Video: 3-1 Beyond the Nash Equilibrium
- Video: 3-2 Strictly Dominated Strategies & Iterative Removal
- Video: 3-3 Dominated Strategies & Iterative Removal: An Application
- Video: 3-4 Maxmin Strategies
- Video: 3-4 Maxmin Strategies - Advanced
- Video: 3-5 Correlated Equilibrium: Intuition
- Practice Quiz: In-Video Quizzes Week 3
Graded: Problem Set 3
WEEK 4
Week 4: Extensive-Form Games
Perfect information games: trees, players assigned to nodes, payoffs, backward Induction, subgame perfect equilibrium, introduction to imperfect-information games, mixed versus behavioral strategies.
10 videos, 1 practice quiz
- Video: 4-1 Perfect Information Extensive Form: Taste
- Video: 4-2 Formalizing Perfect Information Extensive Form Games
- Discussion Prompt: Play the Centipede Game if you like
- Video: 4-3 Perfect Information Extensive Form: Strategies, BR, NE
- Video: 4-4 Subgame Perfection
- Video: 4-5 Backward Induction
- Video: 4-6 Subgame Perfect Application: Ultimatum Bargaining
- Video: 4-7 Imperfect Information Extensive Form: Poker
- Video: 4-8 Imperfect Information Extensive Form: Definition, Strategies
- Video: 4-9 Mixed and Behavioral Strategies
- Discussion Prompt: Play the Rainbow Warship game if you like
- Video: 4-10 Incomplete Information in the Extensive Form: Beyond Subgame Perfection
- Practice Quiz: In-Video Quizzes Week 4
Graded: Problem Set 4
WEEK 5
Week 5: Repeated Games
Repeated prisoners dilemma, finite and infinite repeated games, limited-average versus future-discounted reward, folk theorems, stochastic games and learning.
7 videos, 1 practice quiz
- Video: 5-1 Repeated Games
- Discussion Prompt: Play some repeated games if you like
- Video: 5-2 Infinitely Repeated Games: Utility
- Video: 5-3 Stochastic Games
- Video: 5-4 Learning in Repeated Games
- Discussion Prompt: Play the repeated battle of the sexes game
- Video: 5-5 Equilibria of Infinitely Repeated Games
- Video: 5-6 Discounted Repeated Games
- Video: 5-7 A Folk Theorem for Discounted Repeated Games
- Practice Quiz: In-Video Quizzes Week 5
Graded: Problem Set 5
WEEK 6
Week 6: Bayesian Games
General definitions, ex ante/interim Bayesian Nash equilibrium.
6 videos, 1 practice quiz
- Video: 6-1 Bayesian Games: Taste
- Video: 6-2 Bayesian Games: First Definition
- Video: 6-2 Bayesian Games: First Defintion (yoav)
- Video: 6-3 Bayesian Games: Second Definition
- Video: 6-4 Analyzing Bayesian Games
- Video: 6-5 Analyzing Bayesian Games: Another Example
- Practice Quiz: In-Video Quizzes Week 6
Graded: Problem Set 6
WEEK 7
Week 7: Coalitional Games
Transferable utility cooperative games, Shapley value, Core, applications.
5 videos, 1 practice quiz
- Video: 7-1 Coalitional Game Theory: Taste
- Video: 7-2 Coalitional Game Theory: Definitions
- Video: 7-3 The Shapley Value
- Video: 7-4 The Core
- Video: 7-5 Comparing the Core and Shapley value in an Example
- Practice Quiz: In-Video Quizzes Week 7
Graded: Problem Set 7
WEEK 8
Week 8: Final Exam
The description goes here
Graded: Final Exam
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The University of British Columbia
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Ratings and Reviews
All in, as they say in poker, a very interesting course. It was useful to go through the basics of Game Theory in a systematic manner. It was a bit disappointing not to be able to download the slides, however.
A nice introductory course.
Very good course. I would like to have more written support material.
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AA
Fun intro to game theory. The tasks were illustrative, the lectures engaging, and the provided games to play both were a great for intuitive understanding of the games.