Naive Strategies in Competitive Games

Abstract

We investigate the behavior of players in a two-person competitive game. One player ``hides'' a treasure in one of four locations, and the other player ``seeks'' the treasure in one of these locations. The seeker wins if her choice matches the hider's choice; the hider wins if it does not. According to the classical game-theoretic analysis, both players should choose each item with probability of.25. In contrast, we found that both hiders and seekers tended to avoid the endpoints. This bias produces a positive correlation between the players' choices, giving the seeker a considerable advantage over the hider.