Saturday, July 28, 2007

pirates of the gold coast

Let me tell you how i discovered game theory. I read a riddle about five pirates – intelligent pirates – who want to split a treasure. I don’t want to present you with fancy formulas and mathematical explanations. Just try to solve the riddle yourself and enjoy the surprising solution. So here is the riddle:

Five pirates got their hand on 500 gold coins. Now they want to devide the treasure. But because they are intelligent pirates – like a sober captain sparrow - and not the stereotype pirates who would just betray and kill until there is only a last one standing. One after the other will make a suggestion how to split the coins among the pirates. If a suggestion doesn’t get at least half the votes it is declined and the pirate making the suggestion is killed by the others. If the suggestion gets half the votes - or more - it is accepted and the gold is split. The pirate making the suggestion can also vote. So if the first suggestions is not accepted – and the pirate killed - the second pirate only needs to persuade one companion to have the gold split the way he wants it to. So what is the accepted suggestion ? Each pirates wants to make as much as possible - of course - without dying - surprise, surprise.
I will post the solution and explanation as a comment within a couple of days.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

hi! who am i ?

welcome to the home of the gameterrorist....and no worries i am calm as a bomb. just kidding. i just find it hard to spell theorist ;-)
i’m not a game theorist neither but i am really enjoying game theory problems and their often surprising solutions. these methods help to improve your play.
and that’s what’s this blog is all about....games, games, games and games
board games, card games, pc games

i am starting to learn backgammon and just received “backgammon for winners” by bill robertie. hoping this book will help to improve my game...
also i play a lot of poker...but this will not turn into a poker blog....maybe i’ll post some results every once in a while...but i think most are not interested in the life of a small limit grinder.
and last but not least i play chess....don’t play a lot lately. only the regular league games. for those who care my DWZ (german rating) is 1571. my highest rating was 1628. really have to play and study more. my goal is still to reach 1700.

besides those games i enjoy every single pc game out there....well of course not all of them...but really to much to mention all.