Is a Good Offensive Always the Best Defense?

J. Quetzalcoatl Toledo-Marin (), Rogelio Diaz-Mendez and Marcelo Del Castillo Mussot ()
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J. Quetzalcoatl Toledo-Marin: Depto. de Física Química, Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apartado Postal 20-364, Mexico DF 01000, Mexico
Rogelio Diaz-Mendez: icFRC, IPCMS (UMR 7504) and ISIS (UMR 7006), Université de Strasbourg and CNRS, CP 67000 Strasbourg, France
Marcelo Del Castillo Mussot: Depto. de Estado Sólido, Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apartado Postal 20-364, Mexico DF 01000, Mexico

International Game Theory Review (IGTR), 2017, vol. 19, issue 01, 1-12

Abstract: A checkers-like model game with a simplified set of rules is studied through extensive simulations of agents with different expertise and strategies. The introduction of complementary strategies, in a quite general way, provides a tool to mimic the basic ingredients of a wide scope of real games. We find that only for the player having the higher offensive expertise (the dominant player), maximizing the offensive always increases the probability to win. For the nondominant player, interestingly, a complete minimization of the offensive becomes the best way to win in many situations, depending on the relative values of the defense expertise. Further simulations on the interplay of defense expertise were done separately, in the context of a fully offensive scenario, offering a starting point for analytical treatments. In particular, we established that in this scenario the total number of moves is defined only by the player with the lower defensive expertise. We believe that these results stand for a first step towards a new way to improve decision making in a large number of zero-sum real games.

Keywords: Computer simulations; game theory; optimal strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1142/S0219198917500049

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