Image copyright ALAMY The Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis - currently negotiating over the fate of his country's debt - is a student of 'game theory'. But what is it, asks Chris Stokel-Walker. 'Some commentators rushed to presume that as Greece's new finance minister I was busily devising bluffs, stratagems and outside options, struggling to improve upon a weak hand,' this week. 'If anything, my game-theory background convinced me that it would be pure folly to think of the current deliberations between Greece and our partners as a bargaining game to be won or lost via bluffs and tactical subterfuge.' Game theory can be described as the mathematical study of decision-making, of conflict and strategy in social situations. It helps explain how we interact in key decision-making processes. Imagine you're buying a car from a dealership.

The dealer wants to sell the car, and has a fixed price beyond which he cannot drop without making a loss. You want to buy the car, but get the best price. The car dealer bases his negotiating tactics on the fact that you want the car, that he could sell the car to another customer, that he'll win praise for selling the car, and the break-even point beyond which he cannot negotiate down. You base your negotiating on the fact that the dealer wants to sell the car, that there is a profit margin into which you can haggle to bring down the car's price, and are mindful that the dealer knows your presence in his office means you want to buy a car.

Every time we interact with another human being, whether it's eyeing up the last muffin at the coffee shop counter, or doing a favour for a work colleague that we hope will be repaid in kind, we're using logic that could be described using the rules of game theory. These 'games' are vital even to animals, says Antonio Cabrales, a professor of economics at University College London.

Virtual Pet Games Pc Free Software here. Winter 1990 Game Theory and Hostage-Taking Incidents: A Case Study of the Munich Olympic Games by Reuben Miller INTRODUCTION This study examines closely a. Terrorism and Game Theory Coalitions, negotiations and audience costs. Primarily motivated by my experiences whilst carrying out research in Peru during the hostage. Game Theory and Hostage-Taking Incidents. And negotiations. These stages are characteristic of all hostage-taking incidents. NEGOTIATION TECHNIQUES IN HOSTAGE SITUATION. But they are always on sort of crisis/hostage negotiation between both parties.

'I take an action, you take an action,' explains Cabrales. 'Something happens. The something that happens is going to depend on what both you and I do.' The game is a kind of mathematical model to understand decision making and the interaction between decision makers. The best known game is the Prisoner's Dilemma. Two people are arrested, imprisoned and given a date for a trial.

The prosecutor of the case approaches each prisoner in turn and presents them with an offer - if you confess against your partner in crime, all charges will be dropped against you and used as evidence to convict the other. He would get 20 years. If you stay silent and your partner confesses, you'll be convicted and get 20 years and he'll be freed.

If both of you confess, you'll be convicted but only get five years in prison. If you both stay silent, you'll both be convicted and get one year in prison. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Game theorist John Nash (left) was portrayed by Russell Crowe in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind The prisoner's dilemma is that each prisoner's fate relies on the other's actions. Individually, confessing would be the better option - but if both confess, the punishment is worse than it would be if they both held their tongue. 'These people make choices, and these choices then have an impact on other people,' says Paul Schweinzer, a senior lecturer at the University of York's department of economics.

Honda Elysion English Manual Nsln there. 'Game theory is when I take these impacts my choices have on other people into account when making my decision.' The 'game' is the interaction between two or more parties, and relies on people acting rationally, knowing the boundaries of the 'game', and knowing that the other party is equally cognisant of the rules. These strategic interactions form the crux of game theory. Canon Eos 630 Manual here. 'Sometimes we use it knowingly, sometimes we do it intuitively,' notes Cabrales. Even if people - and certainly animals - do not reason consciously about what strategies to take, other forces, such as evolution, or learning from past mistakes, often make them behave in the same way as if they were cool rational game players.