There are two piece of assessment in this course:

• A 2 hour exam (80%)
• A group research project (20%)

Exam (80%)

Work in progress: Example and mock exams to appear here.

Group research project (20%)

Due date: end of the Spring Semester.

Carry out a group research project using Game Theory for a chosen topic of your choice.

The choice of topic is yours, two potential general areas of investigation:

• Prove and illustrate a theorem from the notes (or otherwise);
• Model a real world scenario using game theory.

You are able to use code to tackle the numerical computations to allow you to delve further in to the investigation you choose.

You will evidence your work with 2 mediums:

1. A 2 page paper
2. A 15 minute recorded presentation

Your final submission should include the following 3 files:

1. A main.pdf file: the pdf file for a 2 page paper.
2. A presentation.mp4 (or similar file format): the video recording of your 15 minute presentation
3. A contribution.md file: a file describing the contributions of every member of your group.

Marking criteria

40-44%

• The work shows limited effort and lacks clarity and insight.
• Ideas are vague, disorganized, and not well supported.
• Limited understanding of basic game theory concepts, such as Nash equilibrium.
• Arguments, if present, are weak and lack structure or evidence.
• Overall, the submission suggests significant gaps in understanding or preparation.

45-54%

• Some understanding of the topic is evident, but analysis is basic and lacks depth.
• Concepts such as payoff matrices or strategies are included but may be inaccurate or superficial.
• Writing is somewhat clear but may lack precision or organization.
• Evidence and examples, such as real-world applications, are limited or not well integrated.
• The work shows effort but is underdeveloped.

55-64%%

• Demonstrates a reasonable understanding of game theory with moderately developed ideas.
• Key concepts, such as strategies or best responses, are mostly accurate but lack deeper exploration.
• Writing is clear and organized, with occasional lapses in coherence.
• Supporting evidence is relevant but may not fully support arguments.
• The submission is competent but not particularly original or insightful.

65-69%

• Shows strong understanding of game theory with well-developed ideas and analysis.
• Key concepts are applied accurately and effectively.
• Writing is effective, with good organization and clear transitions.
• Evidence and examples, such as real-world scenarios or well chosen examples, are relevant and support the research well.
• The submission is solid but may not achieve a high level of originality or insight.

70-74%

• Displays a strong understanding of the topic with insightful analysis.
• Concepts such as evolutionary game theory or repeated games are explored thoughtfully and creatively.
• Writing is polished, with clear organization and precise language.
• Evidence is well-chosen and effectively integrated.
• The submission may need minor refinement.

75-79%

• Exceptional understanding of game theory with advanced analysis and arguments.
• Key ideas are connected to broader contexts.
• Writing is consistently polished and clear.
• Evidence is of high quality adding depth to the analysis.
• The work is excellent but may lack the highest level of originality or rigor.

80-84%

• Exemplary work with advanced understanding of game theory.
• Analysis is insightful and connects to broader or interdisciplinary topics, such as behavioral economics or biology.
• Writing is excellent, with clarity and coherence throughout.
• Evidence is of high relevance, such as critiques of existing literature.
• The submission is of publishable quality with minor refinements.

85-89%

• Outstanding mastery of game theory, pushing boundaries of understanding.
• Arguments are highly original and innovative, such as advanced approaches to repeated or dynamic games.
• Writing is flawless, with professional clarity and tone.
• Evidence is unique and effectively supports arguments, including advanced mathematical models or simulations.
• The work sets a high standard for excellence.

90-94%

• An extraordinary piece of work with groundbreaking analysis.
• Unique perspectives and methods are applied to theoretical topics at the boundaries of the taught content.
• Writing is exceptional, with engaging and clear presentation.
• Evidence and examples are original, such as innovative takes on classic problems or stochastic games.
• The submission is of publishable quality and demonstrates critical and creative engagement.

95-100%

• Exceptional work demonstrating a profound understanding of game theory.
• Analysis and ideas are highly original, creative, and well-supported.
• Writing is professional and engaging, clearly communicating complex ideas.
• Evidence and examples, whether theoretical or computational, are thoughtfully chosen and seamlessly integrated.
• This level represents outstanding academic achievement, demonstrating both depth and originality, for those who fully engage with the subject matter.

Specific Criteria Descriptions

1. Content and Depth

• Demonstrates understanding of relevant topics.
• Includes original and creative ideas.
• Covers key concepts such as Nash equilibrium, Bayesian games, or bargaining solutions accurately and appropriately.
• Effectively incorporates computational tools to support analysis and exploration.

2. Writing Style and Organization

• Ideas are presented clearly and logically.
• Writing is organized and uses suitable language.
• Sections flow well and enhance the overall argument.

3. Evidence and Supporting Details

• Includes relevant and well-integrated evidence.
• Uses examples or visuals, like payoff matrices or diagrams, to clarify points.
• Demonstrates effective use of computational outputs to support arguments.

4. Analysis and Argumentation

• Develops clear and logical arguments.
• Uses evidence effectively to build ideas.
• Incorporates computational tools to replace repetitive calculations and enable deeper analysis.
• Addresses counterarguments where relevant.

Past projects

A list of titles of past projects:

2024-2025

• Thinking Outside the Box: Infinite Action Sets

• The Price of Panic: A Game Theoretic Analysis of Panic Buying

• The Game Theory of Bluffing in B.S

• Nash Equilibria in Golden Balls

• A Three Choice Prisoner’s Dilemma for the Modelling of Economic Collusion

• A Game Theoretic Analysis Into Counter-Strike 2 Economic Strategies

• Hostile Takeovers: The Market’s Strategies

• A Ride Through Line-Cutting Behaviour

• Chomp, a Game Theoretical Investigation

• Can Cooperation Emerge Between Shipping Companies Tackling Piracy in East Africa?

• Game Theory in Pokemon

• Survival of the Best Communicators: Evolutionary Game Theory and the Development of Language

• Why bother? A game-theoretic analysis of group projects

• The Drongo and the Meerkats

• Reputable Criminals

• Gamesmanship or Game Theory? Understanding Time-Wasting in the Premier League

• Draft Day

• Cry Truth or Cry Wolf? Understanding honesty and dishonesty in animals

• The Game Theory behind Mafia

• Game Theory and Autonomous Vehicles: Strategic Interactions Between Pedestrians and Self-Driving Cars

• Game Theory Analysis of Airline Price Surging

• A Game of Friends

• Impulse Buying and Social Influence: Are your purchases rational choices or a game of influence?

• The Debate Game

• Aggression or Cooperation? Evolutionary Dynamics in Puffin Foraging

• Sustaining Strategic Restraint in South Asia: A Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma Model of India–Pakistan Arms Dynamics

2024-2025 (Individual project)

• An Evolutionary Model of Investment Strategies in the Premier League

• Justice or Strategy? The Game Theory of Jury Deliberation

• Modelling Quoridor Strategy Performance via an Axelrod Tournament

• The Democracy Free Ride: Who’s Still Paying?

• Sharing Tendencies on Social Media: A Replicator Dynamics Approach

• The Survivability of Laziness

• With the World at Stake - Game Theory in Brinkmanship and Escalation

• The Game Theory of Battleships

• Beating the Bottleneck: Using the Moran Process to Maximise Efficiency at Airport Security

• Should Distributors Always Choose to Release Movies in Peak Periods?

• An evolutionary game theory model of polities and their emergent behaviour

• Game Theory Within Contract Killing

• Is Honesty really the Best Policy?

• Using Game Theory to investigate the murky dynamic of asking strangers for cigarettes in nightclub smoking areas.

• Modelling the Evolution of Opinions

• Strategic Location of Competitive Takeaway Businesses

• Best Strategies in Ticket to Ride: Europe

• The Clean House Conundrum

• The Evolution of Penalty Kicks in Association Football

• Victorian Couple’s planning

• A Game Theoretic Analysis of the Endgame of Briscola: Nash Equilibria and Backward induction

• Hide & Seek: Its not about winning, it’s about taking part

• Game Theory in Marvel Rivals

• Modelling MRSA’s High-level Antibiotic Resistance using Game Theory

• The Musician’s Dilemma: Cooperation vs. Defection in the Age of Streaming

• Refined predator-prey relationship using the Moran process

• Does a work-life balance exist and is it feasible?

• Dominance of strategies for insurance companies based on Game Theory in the UK

• Analysis of Penalty Kicks in Football

• The Game Theory of Challenging the Ball in a Rocket League

• Dune Best Strategies

• Replicator Dynamics in Game Theory: A Study of Advertising Strategies in the Cola Industry

• Fight, Flight, or Feed: A Game Theoretic Exploration of Red Squirrel Conservation

• Disarmament as deterrence

• Does a dominant strategy emerge for success as an individual player in Solo Fortnite?

• Should Syrians Return to Syria?

• Swiping Right, a Game Theoretical Investigation of User Behaviour on Dating Apps

• The Cost of Victory: Game Theory and the Doping Dilemma

• An investigation into the emergence of cooperation in the hawk-dove game

• A game theoretic model of financial fair play in premier league football using the iterated prisoners dilemma

• Bluffing and Stability in the AKQ Game: A Game-Theoretic and Evolutionary Analysis

• The Disgrace of Gijon - Game Theory in Footbal

• Cooperative Hunting Strategies in African Wild Dogs: A Game-Theoretic Analysis Using Replicator Dynamics and IPD

• How to prevent a nuclear war & the strategies behind arms-races: A game theoretic approach

• Game Theory in Vaccine Distribution: Co-operation vs Self-Interest

• Cooperation Under Imperfection

• Game Theory in Rainbow Six Siege

• A Game Theory Analysis of Hamilton vs. Verstappen’s 2021 Crashes and Overtakes

• The Game Theory behind Exploding Kittens

• Evolutionary Game Theory for Modified Rock-Paper-Scissors in Pokemon

• Game Theory And 20th Century Conflict

• Should you use set-up moves in Pokemon?

• Trust and Cooperation in Repeated Interactions: Using the 1919-1939, Interwar Period to show how Repeated Games can Explain the Emergence of Trust and Cooperation in Human Societies

• Cooperation vs. Defection: Lessons from the Centipede Game

• Four the Win: Game Theory of Connect 4

• The Braess Paradox: A Game Theoretic Analysis of Road Networks in Cardiff

• Counting in an Orchestral Setting: A Game Theoretic Analysis

• A Journey to Abacws

• Does the Winner Truly Take it All?

• Prisoner’s Dilemma and Strategic Stockpiling

• The Game Theory of Industrial Action

• Penalties in Football

• Difficulty vs Execution Game in Gymnastics

• One Dart to Rule Them All: An Extensive Form Analysis

• Using Axelrod’s Library to model outcomes relating to the Antarctic Treaty

• Modelling Predator-Prey Dynamics Using Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

• Should you go for the gap? A game theoretic analysis of overtaking in F1

• Patent Races

• The Future of Traffic Flow: A Game Theoretic Investigation

• Three’s a Crowd: Game Theory in WWE Triple Threat Matches

• Application of game theory in the housing rental problem: Who will clean?

• Strategic Play, Observation, and Optimal Forecasting

• How can game theory model overtaking strategies in Formula 1?

• Are Indian weddings too much?

• Should We Discount Counterspell? The Game Theory of D&D Spellcaster Battles

• Game Theory Analysis of Penalty Kicks in Football

• Modeling Cooperation Between Train Operating Companies (TOCs) When There Is A Limited Budget

• Prisoner’s Dilemma in Musical Collaboration

• Should you follow the leader?

• The Evolution of Offensive vs Defensive Volleyball strategies

• Exploring Auction Theory

• Invasive Species

• Game Theory of Congestion in Traffic Routing

• The Re-spotted Black - A Game Theoretic Analysis

• The best response condition: a theoretical description and numerical insights

• Coca-Cola Vs Pepsi: A Cola Wars Dilemma

• NAT types: Gaming or security?

• The Game Theory behind 4th & 1 Play Calling In The National Football League

• A Load of Bullshit: A Game Theoretic Analysis of Lying and Calling it

• Replicator Dynamics of Original vs Licensed Productions

• A look into whether you should protect or attack on the last turn of a Pokemon battle, and the affect a proposed change has to this decision

• Penalty shootouts

• Who Should Confess First? Game Theory Meets Romance

• Sharing of hospital resources during a pandemic

• Game theory in the opera Lucia di Lammermoor: The Choices of Lucia and Enrico

• The Game Theory of battle royale landing spots

• The Game Theory Behind Cyber Deception

• Strategy Steps

• Bluffing in Simplified Poker: A Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibrium Approach

• Can a player really beat the casino at blackjack using different betting systems?

2023-2024

• Is Chess Dead? A Game Theoretic Investigation

• Using Replicator Dynamics to Model Seating Strategies in Abacws

• To Fish Or Not To Fish : Modelling Competition Between Fisheries

• Should I Stay? or Should I Go? The Game Theory of Divorce

• Connect 4: Is There a Strategy to Beat All Strategies?

• Size matter: Relating sizes to herbivores strategies in biosystem

• Evolutionary Stability of Fast Passes in Theme Parks

• Fight or Flight: Are the odds really in your favour?

• The Optimal Strategy for Mastering Card-Jitsu

• The Study of Gossip using Evolutionary Game Theory

• Climate Conundrums: A Game Theoretic Approach to Global Climate Agreements

• The Art of War: Applying Game Theory to Risk

• Exploring Auction Theory

• Bats and their drinking habits: A study into the emergence of altruism

• Modelling Risk

• Is Makeup a Game That Can Be Played?

• Beyond Golden Balls

• Duopoly Price Wars

• Analysis of F1 Pit Stop Strategies

• How Shopping Trolleys Determine A Society?

• Hotel of Hazards: Spy Survival

2022-2023

• A game theoretic model for the spread of bird flu

• Does Crime-Pay? Co-Evolution of Insider Trading and its Regulation

• Modelling Monster Hunter World Using Replicator Dynamics

• Money Exchange Game

• A game theoretical analysis of strategy steps

• Should a Country Prioritize Military Spending at the Expense of Economic Growth?

• Using the Moran Process to Cast Dating Shows

• An exploration of University Project Strategies

• How to survive the Werewolves

• Global Co-Operation: Central to Addressing Climate Change

• A visualisation of evolutionary processes using the hawk and dove game

• Game Theory: End Game Chess

• A Game Theoretic Analysis of Netflix’s Decision to Ban Password Sharing

• Dirty Dilemmas; Exploring Game Theory in the Dishwashing Dynamics of Shared Households

• Academic vs Alcohol: An Investigation into Student Drinking Habits

• The Traitors: Support or Betray

• Exploring the Applications of Game Theory to Chessboxing

• An Exploration of the Game Theory in Mahjong

• Game Theory for optimal portfolio selection

• The Evolution of Online Dating: Examining the Unique Approaches of Tinder and Hinge

• Game Theory of Interview Scheduling

• The Game Theory of playing Hard to get

• Liar’s Dice: a game of deceit

• Decision making in Cricket Based on Weather Conditions Using Game Theory

• Modelling penalties effectively with use of probability

• Is Cheat Really the Name of the Game?

• Analyze the Best Move in a Five-in-a-row Endgame

2021-2022

• The domestication of foxes through game theory

• Noughts and Crosses

• Love or money (Love Island)

• A game theory investigation of chess openings

• How engagement in social media can effect news

• Fairness and game theory

• What if there was a 4th strategy to rock paper scissors?

• Going once, going twice… Sold! To the best player.

• Applying game theory from the cold war to modern day.

• Representing the dollar auction using game theory.

• Which price setting strategy is best for competing companies to maximise profit: price war or price match guarantee

• The evolution of Twenty20 cricket

• Prisoner’s dilemma: applying Axelrod’s strategies to Amazon Prime versus Netflix

• Analysing Wales’ decision to enter lockdown in response to England’s strategy during the COVID 19 pandemic

• Maximising profit in a duopoly market

• An iterated three person prisoner’s dilemma

• Game theory of tennis

• Vaccines if you please

• A Monte Carlo analysis on the effects of the morality metrics in the iterated prisoners dilemma.

• Cheating at a two player card game with a probability of being caught

• Does self interest optimise public good?

• Investigating a replicator dynamics model of Frank’s Zoo

• The effect of implementing a budget cap on the Premier league

• Can game theory explain football player prices?

• Effective strategies in competitive bargaining tournaments

Log of past relevant classes

09/01/25: Change of the course

This year I will be making some rather big changes to the course. In short:

05/19/25: Group Coursework Feedback

I have marked the group coursework and thank you all for your hard work. In this post I will give a brief summary of the performance.

04/25/25: Individual Coursework Feedback

I have marked the individual coursework and thank you all for your hard work. In this post I will give a brief summary of the performance.

05/21/24: Overview of assessment performance

In this post I will discuss the performance of the class:

04/16/24: Individual Coursework Feedback

I have marked the individual coursework and the overall performance is impressive: the average mark is 85%.

02/16/24: Mid module feedback and meetings

On Tuesday we had two class. We went through your mid module feedback and had a brief discussion about meetings.

07/04/23: Overview of group coursework performance

The group coursework is a difficult assessment marked on a difficult scale. Summary of the class marks are here:

03/21/23: Discussing the individual coursework

In class today we discussed the individual coursework. I did my best to take all questions and ensure everyone understood what each question is asking for.

02/23/23: Mid module feedback

On Friday you spent some time filling in the mid module feedback for Game Theory. Here I will go over some of the recurring points raised.

02/14/23: Valentines day

In today’s class we spoke about a deadline for the individual coursework but spent most of our time taking the initial steps that a research project would take to model gift giving for Valentines day.

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