4 Ross and Collwen are playing a game in which each secretly chooses a magic spell. They then reveal their choices, and work out their scores using the tables below. Ross and Collwen are both trying to get as large a score as possible.
| | Collwen's choice |
| | Fire | Ice | Gale |
| \cline { 2 - 5 } | Fire | 1 | 7 | 2 |
| \cline { 2 - 5 }
| Ice | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| \cline { 2 - 5 } | Gale | 5 | 1 | 3 |
| \cline { 2 - 5 } |
| | Collwen's choice | |
| | Fire | Ice | Gale |
| \cline { 2 - 5 } | Fire | 7 | 1 | 6 |
| \cline { 2 - 5 }
| Ice | 2 | 6 | 4 |
| \cline { 2 - 5 } | Gale | 3 | 7 | 5 |
| \cline { 2 - 5 } |
- Explain how this can be rewritten as the following zero-sum game.
| | Collwen's choice | |
| | Fire | Ice | Gale |
| \cline { 2 - 5 } | Fire | - 3 | 3 | - 2 |
| \cline { 2 - 5 }
| Ice | 2 | - 2 | 0 |
| \cline { 2 - 5 } | Gale | 1 | - 3 | - 1 |
| \cline { 2 - 5 } |
- If Ross chooses Ice what is Collwen's best choice?
- Find the play-safe strategy for Ross and the play-safe strategy for Collwen, showing your working. Explain how you know that the game is unstable.
- Show that none of Collwen's strategies dominates any other.
- Explain why Ross would never choose Gale, hence reduce the game to a \(2 \times 3\) zero-sum game, showing the pay-offs for Ross.
Suppose that Ross uses random numbers to choose between Fire and Ice, choosing Fire with probability \(p\) and Ice with probability \(1 - p\).
- Use a graphical method to find the optimal value of \(p\) for Ross.