Playing for Real: A Text on Game Theory

Ken Binmore

Mar 2007 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

Ken Binmore's previous game theory textbook, Fun and Games (D.C. Heath, 1991), carved out a significant niche in the advanced undergraduate market; it was intellectually serious and more up-to-date than its competitors, but also accessibly written. Its central thesis was that game theory allows us to understand many kinds of interactions between people, a point that Binmore amply demonstrated through a rich range of examples and applications. This replacement for the now out-of-date 1991 textbook retains the entertaining examples, but changes the organization to match how game theory courses are actually taught, making Playing for Real a more versatile text that almost all possible course designs will find easier to use, with less jumping about than before. In addition, the problem sections, already used as a reference by many teachers, have become even more clever and varied, without becoming too technical. Playing for Real will sell into advanced undergraduate courses in game theory, primarily those in economics, but also courses in the social sciences, and serve as a reference for economists.

Ratings and reviews

Binmore has written a light-hearted text on game theory. He teaches by example. This has advantages and disadvantages. It brings out many important ideas and drives them home through the examples, but definitions are often buried in the examples. That leads to less than precise treatments of topics (mathematicians beware). Many of the examples are tedious to follow and I was constantly going back to figure out the details. Is Boris or Vlad player I or II? Does Alice move first or is it Bob? What does that notation mean - where is it defined? Adding to the frustration are the errors (that are seemingly everywhere).

About the author

Ken Binmore is a mathematician-turned-economist who has devoted his life to the theory of games and its applications in economics, evolutionary biology, psychology, and moral philosophy. He is well known for his part in designing the telecom auction that raised $35 billion for the British taxpayer, but his major research contributions are to the theory of bargaining and its testing in the laboratory. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of 12 books and some 90 research papers. He is Emeritus Professor of Economics at University College London.