Game Theory with Spreadsheets: Payoff Matrices, Nash Equilibria & Mixed Strategies

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Read a 3×3 pricing duel between two coffee chains, flag each player's best responses with IF and MAX, and look up Alto's best reply to a high price.
• Test strategies for strict dominance with differences and MIN, remove them one round at a time, and see a strategy that only becomes dominated after the rival's bad option is gone.
• Find every pure Nash equilibrium of a location game with one AND formula, count them, pick the one with the highest joint profit and highlight them with a formula rule.
• Discount the profit streams of cooperating and of cutting prices once, add them up over 10 rounds and find the discount factor above which a grim-trigger agreement holds.
• Solve a promo-timing game without a pure equilibrium: each player's mix makes the other indifferent. You compute both probabilities and chart Bramble's two expected payoffs crossing at Alto's equilibrium mix.
• Compute row minima and column maxima to find maximin, minimax and a saddle point, then solve a 2×2 zero-sum game without a saddle point for Alto's optimal mix and the value of the game.
• Solve an entry game from the last move back with IF formulas, see why a threat to fight is not credible, and test whether sunk capacity makes it credible enough to keep Bramble out.
• Calculate what Alto collects in eight kiosk-slot auctions under second-price and first-price rules, compare the averages with the theoretical expected revenue and chart both formats.