In this paper, we solve the constant-payoff conjecture formulated by Sorin, Venel and Vigeral (2010), for absorbing games with an arbitrary evaluation of the stage rewards. That is, the existence of a pair of asymptotically optimal strategies, indexed by the evaluation of the stage rewards, so that the average rewards are constant on any fraction of the game. That the constant-payoff conjecture holds for stochastic games with an arbitrary evaluation is still open.
It was shown in Flesch and Solan (2022) with a rather involved proof that all two-player stochastic games with finite state and action spaces and shift-invariant payoffs admit an $ε$-equilibrium, for every $ε>0$. Their proof also holds for two-player absorbing games with tail-measurable payoffs. In this paper we provide a simpler proof for the existence of $ε$-equilibrium in two-player absorbing games with tail-measurable payoffs, by combining recent mathematical tools for such payoff functions with classical tools for absorbing games.
A Dynkin game is a zero-sum, stochastic stopping game between two players where either player can stop the game at any time for an observable payoff. Typically the payoff process of the max-player is assumed to be smaller than the payoff process of the min-player, while the payoff process for simultaneous stopping is in between the two. In this paper, we study general Dynkin games whose payoff processes are in arbitrary positions. In both discrete and continuous time settings, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of pure strategy Nash equilibria and epsilon-optimal …
We show that every two-player stochastic game with finite state and action sets and bounded, Borel-measurable, and shift-invariant payoffs, admits an $\ep$-equilibrium for all $\varepsilon>0$.
We consider multiplayer stochastic games in which the payoff of each player is a bounded and Borel-measurable function of the infinite play. By using a generalization of the technique of Martin (1998) and Maitra and Sudderth (1998), we show four different existence results. In each stochastic game, it holds for every $ε>0$ that (i) each player has a strategy that guarantees in each subgame that this player's payoff is at least her maxmin value up to $ε$, (ii) there exists a strategy profile under which in each subgame each player's payoff is at least her minmax value up to $ε$, (iii) the game …
We apply an approach based on parametric mean-payoff games to develop bisection and Newton schemes for solving problems of tropical pseudolinear and pseudoquadratic optimisation with general two-sided constraints.
In a zero-sum stochastic game, at each stage, two adversary players take decisions and receive a stage payoff determined by them and by a controlled random variable representing the state of nature. The total payoff is the normalized discounted sum of the stage payoffs. In this paper we solve the "constant payoff" conjecture formulated by Sorin, Vigeral and Venel (2010): if both players use optimal strategies, then for any alpha>0, the expected discounted payoff between stage 1 and stage alpha/lambda tends to the limit discounted value of the game, as the discount rate lambda goes to 0.
This paper provides sufficient conditions for the existence of solutions for two-person zero-sum games with inf/sup-compact payoff functions and with possibly noncompact decision sets for both players. Payoff functions may be unbounded, and we do not assume any convexity/concavity-type conditions. For such games expected payoff may not exist for some pairs of strategies. The results of this paper imply several classic facts. The paper also provides sufficient conditions for the existence of a value and solutions for each player. The results of this paper are illustrated with the number guessin…
We study the asymptotic value of a frequency-dependent zero-sum game with separable payoff following a differential approach. The stage payoffs in such games depend on the current actions and on a linear function of the frequency of actions played so far. We associate to the repeated game, in a natural way, a differential game and although the latter presents an irregularity at the origin, we prove that it has a value. We conclude, using appropriate approximations, that the asymptotic value of the original game exists in both the n-stage and the λ-discounted games and that it coincides with th…
We prove that every repeated game with countably many players, finite action sets, and tail-measurable payoffs admits an $ε$-equilibrium, for every $ε> 0$.
We study multiplayer Blackwell games, which are repeated games where the payoff of each player is a bounded and Borel-measurable function of the infinite stream of actions played by the players during the game. These games are an extension of the two-player perfect-information games studied by David Gale and Frank Stewart (1953). Recently, various new ideas have been discovered to study Blackwell games. In this paper, we give an overview of these ideas by proving, in four different ways, that Blackwell games with a finite number of players, finite action sets, and tail-measurable payoffs admit…
Evolutionary game theory is a powerful mathematical framework to study how intelligent individuals adjust their strategies in collective interactions. It has been widely believed that it is impossible to unilaterally control players' payoffs in games, since payoffs are jointly determined by all players. Until recently, a class of so-called zero-determinant strategies are revealed, which enables a player to make a unilateral payoff control over her partners in two-action repeated games with a constant continuation probability. The existing methods, however, lead to the curse of dimensionality w…
We derive the rate of convergence to Nash equilibria for the payoff-based algorithm proposed in \cite{tat_kam_TAC}. These rates are achieved under the standard assumption of convexity of the game, strong monotonicity and differentiability of the pseudo-gradient. In particular, we show the algorithm achieves $O(\frac{1}{T})$ in the two-point function evaluating setting and $O(\frac{1}{\sqrt{T}})$ in the one-point function evaluation under additional requirement of Lipschitz continuity of the pseudo-gradient. These rates are to our knowledge the best known rates for the corresponding problem cla…
We study a finite-horizon two-person zero-sum risk-sensitive stochastic game for continuous-time Markov chains and Borel state and action spaces, in which payoff rates, transition rates and terminal reward functions are allowed to be unbounded from below and from above and the policies can be history-dependent. Under suitable conditions, we establish the existence of a solution to the corresponding Shapley equation (SE) by an approximation technique. Then, by the SE and the extension of the Dynkin's formula, we prove the existence of a Nash equilibrium and verify that the value of the stochast…
We consider network games where a large number of agents interact according to a network sampled from a random network model, represented by a graphon. By exploiting previous results on convergence of such large network games to graphon games, we examine a procedure for estimating unknown payoff parameters, from observations of equilibrium actions, without the need for exact network information. We prove smoothness and local convexity of the optimization problem involved in computing the proposed estimator. Additionally, under a notion of graphon parameter identifiability, we show that the opt…
We study a tropical linear regression problem consisting in finding the best approximation of a set of points by a tropical hyperplane. We establish a strong duality theorem, showing that the value of this problem coincides with the maximal radius of a Hilbert's ball included in a tropical polyhedron. We also show that this regression problem is polynomial-time equivalent to mean payoff games. We illustrate our results by solving an inverse problem from auction theory. In this setting, a tropical hyperplane represents the set of equilibrium prices. Tropical linear regression allows us to quant…
Two-player mean-payoff Stackelberg games are nonzero-sum infinite duration games played on a bi-weighted graph by Leader (Player 0) and Follower (Player 1). Such games are played sequentially: first, Leader announces her strategy, second, Follower chooses his best-response. If we cannot impose which best-response is chosen by Follower, we say that Follower, though strategic, is adversarial towards Leader. The maximal value that Leader can get in this nonzero-sum game is called the adversarial Stackelberg value (ASV) of the game. We study the robustness of strategies for Leader in these games a…
