A clear, comprehensive introduction to the study of game theory. In the fourth edition, new real-world examples and compelling end-of-chapter exercises engage students with game theory.

“I am hard pressed to think of another book that can match the combination of practical insights and reading enjoyment.”—Steven Levitt Game theory means rigorous strategic thinking. It’s the art of anticipating your opponent’s next moves, knowing full well that your rival is trying to do the same thing to you. Though parts of game theory involve simple common sense, much is counterintuitive, and it can only be mastered by developing a new way of seeing the world. Using a diverse array of rich case studies—from pop culture, TV, movies, sports, politics, and history—the authors show how nearly every business and personal interaction has a game-theory component to it. Mastering game theory will make you more successful in business and life, and this lively book is the key to that mastery.

This text offers an exceptionally clear presentation of the mathematical theory of games of strategy and its applications to many fields including economics, military, business, and operations research.

This book is an introduction to mathematical game theory, which might better be called the mathematical theory of conflict and cooperation. It is applicable whenever two individuals—or companies, or political parties, or nations—confront situations where the outcome for each depends on the behavior of all. What are the best strategies in such situations? If there are chances of cooperation, with whom should you cooperate, and how should you share the proceeds of cooperation? Since its creation by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944, game theory has shed new light on business, politics, economics, social psychology, philosophy, and evolutionary biology. In this book, its fundamental ideas are developed with mathematics at the level of high school algebra and applied to many of these fields (see the table of contents). Ideas like “fairness” are presented via axioms that fair allocations should satisfy; thus the reader is introduced to axiomatic thinking as well as to mathematical modeling of actual situations.

Engaging and highly readable, Games of Strategy is a clear and comprehensive introduction to the study of game theory.

"Games of Strategy: Theory and Applications," originally published by Prentice Hall in 1961, was written by Melvin Dresher, a RAND research mathematician, during the heyday of Game Theory at RAND. This book introduced readers to the basic concepts of game theory and its applications for military, economic, and political problems, as well as its usefulness in decision making in business, operations research, and behavioral science. More than 40 years after its first publication as a RAND research study, and to celebrate RAND's 60th Anniversary, RAND brings this classic work back into print in paperback and digital formats. The author presents in an elementary and formal manner the mathematical theory of games of strategy and some of its applications. Although many of the applications are discussed in military terms, they can easily he formulated in economic or social science terms. An attempt has been made to develop the subject matter in such a way as to make the volume adaptable as a text on the theory of games in colleges and universities. The book starts in Chapter 1 with an exposition of games of strategy, with examples taken from parlor games as well as from military games. The next two chapters treat the basic topics in the theory of finite games (i.e., the existence of optimal strategies and their properties). Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the representation of games and the computation of optimal strategies. Since many games involve an infinite number of strategies, Chapters 6, 7, and 8 deal with such games by developing the necessary mathematics (e.g., probability distribution functions and Stieltjes integrals) for handling infinite games. The results on infinite games are applied in Chapters 9 and 10 to two general classes of games -- timing games and tactical games. Finally, the last chapter provides an application of moment space theory to the solution of infinite games.