Two notes on the blotto game

Jonathan Weinstein

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    23 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    We exhibit a new equilibrium of the classic Blotto game in which players allocate one unit of resources among three coordinates and try to defeat their opponent in two out of three. It is well known that a mixed strategy will be an equilibrium strategy if the marginal distribution on each coordinate is U[0,(2/3)]. All classic examples of such distributions have two-dimensional support. Here we exhibit a distribution which has one-dimensional support and is simpler to describe than previous examples. The construction generalizes to give one-dimensional distributions with the same property in higher-dimensional simplices as well.As our second note, we give some results on the equilibrium payoffs when the game is modified so that players have unequal budgets. Our results suggest a criterion for equilibrium selection in the original symmetric game, in terms of robustness with respect to a small asymmetry in resources.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number7
    JournalB.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics
    Volume12
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 2012

    Keywords

    • Blotto
    • zero-sum games

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