Download or read book Essentials of Game Theory written by Kevin Leyton-Brown and published by Morgan & Claypool Publishers. This book was released on 2008 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Game theory is the mathematical study of interaction among independent, self-interested agents. The audience for game theory has grown dramatically in recent years, and now spans disciplines as diverse as political science, biology, psychology, economics, linguistics, sociology, and computer science, among others. What has been missing is a relatively short introduction to the field covering the common basis that anyone with a professional interest in game theory is likely to require. Such a text would minimize notation, ruthlessly focus on essentials, and yet not sacrifice rigor. This Synthesis Lecture aims to fill this gap by providing a concise and accessible introduction to the field. It covers the main classes of games, their representations, and the main concepts used to analyze them. Table of Contents: Games in Normal Form / Analyzing Games: From Optimality to Equilibrium / Further Solution Concepts for Normal-Form Games / Games with Sequential Actions: The Perfect-information Extensive Form / Generalizing the Extensive Form: Imperfect-Information Games / Repeated and Stochastic Games / Uncertainty about Payoffs: Bayesian Games / Coalitional Game Theory / History and References / Index