Two-Person Zero Sum Games with Random Rewards: A Linear Programming Approach
somdeb...@gmail.com
Andrés Perea
In 2026, our EPICENTER will organize the eleventh
EPICENTER Summer Course on Epistemic Game Theory
Incomplete Information, Unawareness and Psychological games
Maastricht University, July 6 – July 17, 2026
Website: Detailed information about the course, and how to register, can be found on the course website https://www.epicenter.name/summercourse/ .
About the course: Are you interested in game theory, and its relation to human reasoning and decision making? Then this is the perfect course for you.
In this course we explore game theoretic situations from an epistemic perspective, by zooming in on the reasoning of a player before he makes a decision in the game. This reasoning does not only concern the possible choices of his opponents, but also the beliefs that his opponents may have before they make a choice.
We concentrate on three classes of games: (a) games with incomplete information, where a player may be uncertain about the opponents’ utility functions, (ii) games with unawareness, where a player may be unaware of some of the choices that his opponents can make, and (iii) psychological games, where the player’s preferences may depend on what he believes that an opponent believes about his own choice.
We investigate all classes of games from a uniform decision theoretic perspective, by modelling these different types of games as one-person decision problems under uncertainty. Moreover, we also analyze them from a uniform reasoning perspective, by concentrating on the central reasoning concept of common belief in rationality, supplemented by the additional conditions of correct beliefs and symmetric beliefs.
The course is open to advanced bachelor students, master students, PhD students and researchers all over the world.
Book: This course is based on the new textbook From Decision Theory to Game Theory: Reasoning about the Decisions of Others by Andrés Perea, which was published by Cambridge University Press this year.
Difference with previous edition: Last year's edition was based on a different textbook, and discussed different topics. To follow this year’s course, it is not necessary to have followed the previous edition. In fact, you should be able to follow this year’s course without having any prior knowledge about game theory. The course is completely self-contained.
Forward: Please forward this message to all people whom you think might be interested.
Questions? Please send an E-mail to Andrés Perea at: cou...@epicenter.name
We hope to see you at the course!
Best regards,
Andrés Perea