Spectrumecons 7 Week Challenge – Challenge 2: Game Theory Results

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the results post for Challenge 2: Game Theory. Unlike many of my other results posts, this post does not contain a video. All values were provided in the question. The winner is determined by the participants’ responses to each other’s decisions.

What is the Game Theory Challenge?

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For the benefit of those who did not enter this challenge, here is a brief explanation of how the game works.

Participants are to choose 4 out of 7 boxes. Each box is assigned a value. The value of the box is equally shared amongst the participants who selected it (e.g. if a box has a value of 30 and 6 participants select that box, each participant obtains a value of 5). The sum of the values of the selected boxes, after being adjusted for sharing, will be the participant's score.

This challenge has several win conditions. These conditions are as follows:

1. The participant who obtains the highest value wins the challenge if no other players’ obtain that same value.
2. If more than one participant shares the highest value, the participant with the lowest value wins if no other players’ obtain that same value.
3. If more than one participant shares the highest value and if more than one participant shares the lowest value, the first and second participants to enter the challenge will be joint winners of the challenge and will share the prize evenly. This will occur regardless of the value they obtained from the boxes.

Responses to the challenge are made in the comments section of the challenge post. The account with the winning entry will receive Hive equivalent to 5 times the number of participants (e.g. if challenge has 6 participants the prize will be 30 Hive (5 × 6)). The maximum prize for this challenge is 60 Hive. In addition to the winning prize, the first 12 entries are given upvotes. The winner also receives 30 points; this contributes to determining the overall challenge series winner.

The format of the required entry is explained in detail in the challenge itself.

For a more detailed explanation, you can access the challenge post using the following link.

Other challenges

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There are six other challenges in the series. Below are four of them.

• Challenge 1: Buying and Selling Game
• Challenge 3: Cost Benefit Analysis
• Challenge 4: Make Me Happy
• Challenge 5: Auction

Results of Challenge 2

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Table 1 contains the selections made by all the participants for this challenge, the values of each box after sharing, each participant’s score, and the winner of the challenge.

Table 1: Results of Challenge 2

The winner of Challenge 2 is @shubhwaj. @shubhwaj won by achieving the outright highest score of 34.50. @shubhwaj wins 40 Hive (5 × 8) and is awarded 30 points.

Below is the challenge series overall scores, so far.

Overall Series Score

Challenge Tips

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There are many ways of approaching this challenge. It is difficult, as we cannot control the behaviour of other participants. Entering later enables a participant to observe many of the other participant’s actions. However, it is possible that a winning strategy will not be available for a participant entering late. In the case of this challenge, a new participant could have made a late entry and won. See Table 2 below.

Table 2: Late Entry Scenario

Another additional participant would be unable to win directly as the highest possible score based on existing selections has been achieved by the newplayer. However, if more participants continue to enter, this participant could still win. This could be with either the highest or lowest score. Winning with the lowest score depends on the highest score being tied, which becomes more likely to occur as the number of participants increase.

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More posts

If you want to read any of my other posts, you can click on the links below. These links will lead you to posts containing my collection of works. These 'Collection of Works' posts have been updated to contain links to the Hive versions of my posts.

My CBA Udemy Course

The course contains over 10 hours of video, over 60 downloadable resources, over 40 multiple-choice questions, 2 sample case studies, 1 practice CBA, life time access and a certificate on completion. The course is priced at the Tier 1 price of £20. I believe it is frequently available at half-price.

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