Here are some highlights:
- Never play a strictly dominated strategy (if given a choice).
- Look for a strategy or mix of strategies that will make your opponent's choice of strategy indifferent, and is also a 'best response' for you, and you have a Nash equilibrium.
- Evolutionarily Stable Strategies are Nash Equilibria (an ESS is an evolution game that has reached an end point - male sea elephants have to be huge to hold down a big harem and have a lot of offspring; but the non-huge bulls can sneak around among the females. The ratios of effort spent on these two strategies prove to be a Nash equilibrium).
- Sometimes more choices make your situation weaker - burning your boats or otherwise making a total commitment can increase your chance of a positive outcomes; but it is important that your adversary knows you're committed, and that it is that sort of game.
- A game known as 'battle of the sexes' assumes that two people going on a date have slightly different taste in film but would prefer to meet up, rather than not. But if they both go to their least favourite film in the hopes of meeting the other, they lose out. What was particularly interesting was that the example 'couple' for the class exercise won out every time because the woman went to her favoured film, and the man went to her favourite film. The traditional practice that in courtship, the effort should be on the man's side, beat the rational game rules.
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