Determinacy in stochastic games with unbounded payoff functions

Abstract

We consider infinite-state turn-based stochastic games of two players, □ and ◇, who aim at maximizing and minimizing the expected total reward accumulated along a run, respectively. Since the total accumulated reward is unbounded, the determinacy of such games cannot be deduced directly from Martin's determinacy result for Blackwell games. Nevertheless, we show that these games are determined both for unrestricted (i.e., history-dependent and randomized) strategies and deterministic strategies, and the equilibrium value is the same. Further, we show that these games are generally not determined for memoryless strategies. Then, we consider a subclass of ◇-finitely-branching games and show that they are determined for all of the considered strategy types, where the equilibrium value is always the same. We also examine the existence and type of (ε-)optimal strategies for both players. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.