OCR D2 2014 June — Question 4

Exam BoardOCR
ModuleD2 (Decision Mathematics 2)
Year2014
SessionJune
TopicGroups

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
Score for
Ross
FireIceGale
\cline { 2 - 5 }Fire172
\cline { 2 - 5 }
Ross's
choice
Ice624
\cline { 2 - 5 }Gale513
\cline { 2 - 5 }
Collwen's choice
Score for
Collwen
FireIceGale
\cline { 2 - 5 }Fire716
\cline { 2 - 5 }
Ross's
choice
Ice264
\cline { 2 - 5 }Gale375
\cline { 2 - 5 }
  1. Explain how this can be rewritten as the following zero-sum game.
    Collwen's choice
    FireIceGale
    \cline { 2 - 5 }Fire- 33- 2
    \cline { 2 - 5 }
    Ross's
    choice
    Ice2- 20
    \cline { 2 - 5 }Gale1- 3- 1
    \cline { 2 - 5 }
  2. If Ross chooses Ice what is Collwen's best choice?
  3. 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.
  4. Show that none of Collwen's strategies dominates any other.
  5. 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 \(1 - p\).
  6. Use a graphical method to find the optimal value of \(p\) for Ross.