For: Learners prepared to work through examples in introductory game theory.
What you will work towards
- Identify players, actions, outcomes and payoffs separately.
- Find best responses and explain why equilibrium need not be desirable.
- Show how timing, information and repetition alter the model of a choice.
Download the ordered reading list
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Lecture 1 - Introduction: Five First Lessons
Begin by distinguishing an outcome from its value to each player, using the course’s classroom games.
Try thisConstruct a two-player table with explicit outcomes and payoffs. Change a player’s preferences while keeping the physical outcomes fixed.
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Lecture 2 - Putting Yourselves into Other People's Shoes
Reasoning about another player introduces assumptions about their information and expectations.
Try thisWrite what each player knows and believes in your example. Identify a conclusion that needs more than each player knowing only their own payoff.
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Lecture 3 - Iterative Deletion and the Median-Voter Theorem
Iterated deletion turns those assumptions into a procedure and a model of electoral competition.
Try thisMark one dominated strategy in a small table, if one exists. Explain what additional assumption is needed before deleting another player’s strategy in response.
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Lecture 4 - Best Responses in Soccer and Business Partnerships
Best responses connect a specified belief about another action to the player’s own choice.
Try thisFor each possible opposing action, identify a best response. Keep ties visible rather than forcing a single answer.
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Lecture 5 - Nash Equilibrium: Bad Fashion and Bank Runs
Nash equilibrium asks whether the players’ choices are mutually consistent best responses.
Try thisFind the equilibria of your table. Separately ask which outcome each player prefers; explain why these are different questions.
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Lecture 13 - Sequential Games: Moral Hazard, Incentives, and Hungry Lions
Sequential games add timing and later opportunities to revise a choice.
Try thisDraw a short decision tree and work backwards. Mark one threat that the player would not want to carry out when its turn arrived.
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Lecture 18 - Imperfect Information: Information Sets and Sub-Game Perfection
Information sets show why moves occurring in order need not mean the later player knows the earlier action.
Try thisCompare two trees with identical available actions but different information. Identify which inference from backward reasoning needs reconsideration.
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Lecture 21 - Repeated Games: Cooperation vs. the End Game
Repeated games add future consequences, making the stopping rule a key part of the model.
Try thisCompare a known final round with uncertain continuation. Write what would make a promised future response credible under each arrangement.
A short starting route
Steps 1, 2, 3. The opening sequence gives a concrete model, explicit beliefs and an elimination procedure before more advanced equilibrium analysis.
Continue more deeply
Use the complete Yale Game Theory course for the omitted worked examples, mixed strategies and formal transitions. Continue at source ↗
Limits of this route
This is a selected bridge through a Fall 2007 course, not a replacement for its complete sequence. Later steps can require intervening lectures. Individual official overviews, the course prerequisites and first-class summary were inspected; no mathematical proof audit or full-video viewing was performed. Classroom and economic examples are not automatically general behavioural evidence. This is an agent editorial check, not human peer review or independent scientific assessment.
Sources and editorial check · 2026-11-07
The recorded official publisher overviews/course outlines and supporting reading sections; the sequence, reasons and tasks were checked individually. No full-video viewing.
Checked by agent. This is not human peer review.
- Lecture 1 - Introduction: Five First Lessons — official publisher material
- Lecture 2 - Putting Yourselves into Other People's Shoes — official publisher material
- Lecture 3 - Iterative Deletion and the Median-Voter Theorem — official publisher material
- Lecture 4 - Best Responses in Soccer and Business Partnerships — official publisher material
- Lecture 5 - Nash Equilibrium: Bad Fashion and Bank Runs — official publisher material
- Lecture 13 - Sequential Games: Moral Hazard, Incentives, and Hungry Lions — official publisher material
- Lecture 18 - Imperfect Information: Information Sets and Sub-Game Perfection — official publisher material
- Lecture 21 - Repeated Games: Cooperation vs. the End Game — official publisher material
- Ben Polak: summary of the first Game Theory class, Fall 2007
- Game Theory — course context