Where one side's gain is exactly the other's loss, the only stable play is to be deliberately unpredictable.
Von Neumann's 1944 example. It is the cleanest case for randomisation: any detectable pattern is exploitable, so the optimal strategy is to be genuinely unpredictable rather than clever.
In practice
- A goalkeeper who always dives right is beaten; one who dives randomly is not, and the randomness is the strategy.
- A tax authority that audits on a predictable rule is gamed; one that audits partly at random is not.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Games & Strategic Interaction
- Essay
- The recurring shapes of conflict and cooperation