Game Theory 101

Each pattern here comes with a plain-language definition, the players involved, what it reveals about their incentives, and where it turns up in the real world. Search for a concept, or start with the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

What the lessons cover

• Classic Games: Prisoner's Dilemma, Chicken Game, Stag Hunt, Coordination Game, Zero-Sum Game
• Equilibrium Concepts: Nash Equilibrium, Dominant Strategy, Pareto Optimality, Correlated Equilibrium, Sequential Games & Backward Induction
• Mechanism Design: Mechanism Design, Auction Theory, Matching Theory (Gale-Shapley), Voting Power Indices
• Behavioral GT: Signaling Theory, Cheap Talk, Repeated Games & Folk Theorem, Evolutionary Stable Strategy, Beauty Contest Game, Behavioral Lens (Bias & Heuristics)
• Applied Domains: Bargaining Theory (Nash Bargaining), Cooperative Game Theory, Shapley Value, Principal-Agent Problem, Screening & Adverse Selection, Public Goods & Tragedy of the Commons, Institutional / Rules Lens, Network / Relationship Lens, Historical Cycles (Ibn Khaldun Lens)

Look up a single term in the glossary, practice a structure in the scenario library, follow a guided learning path, test your read in the what-game-is-this quiz, or work through the trolley problem.