Game Theory in Poker
While poker is a complex game with many variables and strategies, one aspect can be modeled as a mixed-strategy game: bluffing. This article from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University discusses optimal bluffing strategy through the lens of game theory. Say a player has 2 options: bluff or don’t bluff, in which the […]
The Evolution of Friendships in Chinese Online Social Networks and the Strong Triadic Closure
http://xanadu.cs.sjsu.edu/~drtylin/classes/cs286/cs286/Fall2012/cs267_11_19/data/4211a081.pdf This article, titled “The Evolution of Friendships in Chinese Online Social Networks”, examines the evolution of friendships in a Chinese social network site called Douban, and finds out what factor causes strong friendships the most. The study looks at several factors, such as membership in the same discussion group, sharing common friends, and […]
Game Theory and Equilibrium in Fantasy Football Drafting
As the NFL season begins, many people are obsessing over their new fantasy football lineups. Using Game Theory to dictate one’s drafting strategy could have given these people a serious lead over their competition. Many people claim that practicing the draft many times with random people will help them gain the most responsive strategy. However, […]
Stolen Content on Facebook
http://tech.co/facebooks-effort-match-youtube-video-sharing-2015-09 In this recent news article, complications regarding Facebook’s video-sharing service are explored; specifically, how Facebook lacks an effective prevention method for stolen video content. The problem seems to be very prevalent on Facebook, with the article stating that many of the most popular videos across the service were actually stolen and re-uploaded. Facebook seemingly […]
Nash Equilibrium of NBA starting lineups
Over the numerous years professional basketball has been in existence, the composition of the lineups have come to an equilibrium to where everyone plays a mix of big players and small players. Yet why has it become that the best option for a lineup is this balanced mix of big and small? Why not play […]
How does Google Maps work?
Google Maps helps millions of people get from point A to point B seamlessly everyday. So how does it work? As the article explains, it is actually a graph theory problem. Think of your current position as a node and your destination as another node, and then there are many other nodes in between your current position and […]
Using Game Theory to model Iran’s Nuclear Crisis
With the recent signing of the Iran Nuclear Deal arises the irrational fear that Iran will soon develop and point ICBMs at the United States. Media outlets are more than keen on exploiting this concern to stay relevant and politicians are more than keen on using this issue as a debate platform. So how likely […]
How to improve your return game in tennis – Predicting serve direction using game theory
We can see with this article that tennis matches can attempt to be predicted using complex game theory and Markov Chain model from statistics of players’ serves from previous matches such as the match between Andy Roddick and Younes Al Yanaoui during the 2003 Australian Open. However, we can use even simpler game theory to […]
Village MD: A Potential Solution to the Doctor-Patient Prisoner’s Dilemma
In the media today, it seems like there are two groups of people in the field of healthcare that constantly clash against each other, like a bitterly-married elderly couple trying to out-shout the other spouse, and they’re known as patients and doctors respectively. It seems like we all hear stories from our daily lives or […]
The Absurdity of Art Auctions
Some of the most well-known pieces of art go up for auction in the most exciting auctions, Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Extremely wealthy bidders seem to have no limit for what they will pay to have their hands on “priceless art”. With pieces of art fetching tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars today, what […]
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