Two people in a greed therapy group are playing a game. There is a pot of 6 dollars and each person, while isolated, is asked the question "Do you want to be greedy and take all of it?" The money goes to the person who is greedy and if they answer the same they share it. To punish their greed, a player must pay 1 dollar of what he won if he were greedy and an extra dollar if both players were greedy.

You \ Other | Not Greedy | Greedy |
Not Greedy  |     3\3    |   0\5  |
Greedy      |     5\0    |   1\1  |

A) Which option should you choose the first time you play?

B) If you continue playing an unknown finite number of games, what strategy should you use to maximize the amount of money you can win? (Assume that your opponent doesn't necessarily use the same strategy as you.)

Note: Both players are trying to get as much money as possible, and neither needs to get a certain amount of money at all costs.

"neither needs to get a certain amount of money at all costs"

this reinforces my argument: the only reason a logically thinking player would make their decsion 'greedy' would be if they had a need to get 5$, at the cost of limiting the total that the house has to pay out and limiting the total that the other would receive.. if you consider these limitations being roughly equivalent to 'at all costs'.

Posted by wastoids on 2005-12-20 23:06:59