Talk:Matching pennies

Two Finger Morra is the same game - link to it?
Since Matching pennies is the same game as Two Finger Morra (with matching one or two fingers rather than matching heads or tails), it would be useful to mention this and include a link to the wikipedia article on Morra 120.156.241.59 (talk) 23:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Pesky little brother/discoordination
I redirected "pesky little brother" to this because "discoordination game" already redirected, but it's my understanding that those terms are distinct from matching pennies, which is a pure coordination game.

Besen and Farrell's "Choosing How to Compete: Strategies and Tactics in Standardization" (Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 8, No. 2, Spring, 1994) lays out a differing payoff matrix. The example often given is an established technology with a proprietary standard vs. an emerging technology. Rather than a pure either/or, the outcome matrix is like the one to the right. Jokestress (talk) 04:27, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The article lede says, "Matching pennies, also called the Pesky Little Brother Game or Parity Game..." I'm not familiar with either of those alternative names, which could be simply ignorance on my part. I can imagine why it might be called a pesky little brother game (your annoying little brother wants to be wherever you are, you want to be where's he's not), but is it a common enough usage to earn mention? The best reference I turned up on a google scholar search is these lecture notes.


 * On "parity game", I get the feeling that a parity game is a broader class of games, which matching pennies might satisfy.


 * Anyway, lean toward pulling those out


 * The Besson And Farrell paper seems to focus is on dynamics, unlike in matching pennies, so I think it doesn't fit. C RETOG 8(t/c) 17:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Jokestress merged/redirected those because she thought that discoordination game is entirely synonymous with matching pennies. See section below. 02:27, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (Also parity game] is usually about infinite games.) Tijfo098 (talk) 02:43, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Tijfo098, that's the opposite of what I said. I agree with Cretog8 that the "pesky little brother" does not describe matching pennies, because it is a discoordination game. If we aren't going to give discoordination games their own article, I don't think this is the place to redirect "pesky little brother." Jokestress (talk) 03:26, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you proposing we re-purpose this article to cover the whole class of discoordination games? Tijfo098 (talk) 03:52, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, if discoordination games don't deserve their own article yet, I think putting them as a section here makes more sense than as currently done under coordination game. A section here on "other discoordination games" would be OK for the time being (and suited to the literature, which sometimes has "asymmetric matching pennies" games). That said, I'm still not sure "pesky little brother" is a good example discoordination game, since it seems to be a very special case with possible dynamics in mind. C RETOG 8(t/c) 04:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think discoordination game should be a standalone, since there is more than one type. Perhaps we should bring this up at the Wikiproject for this topic? Jokestress (talk) 04:46, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Probably a good idea. The discussion/decision is complicated by the fact that few sources define discoordination game, and those that do so, do not define anti-coordination game and vice-versa. . Tijfo098 (talk) 06:16, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Battle of the sexes/coordination
There's also a coordination game Besen and Farrell called "Battle of the Sexes," with the VHS vs. Beta standard wars as a frequently-cited example. That payoff is shown to the right.

A lot of this stuff might be better in a separate article or at least its own section. Jokestress (talk) 04:27, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * This not a good idea because matching pennies is not the whole class of discoordination games, and this article doesn't even define the notion. I fixed that redirect to Coordination game, but the definition there needs work. Tijfo098 (talk) 10:41, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

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Coordination Strategies for Non-Zero Sum Asymmetric Variant
I see an obvious way to improve the asymmetric game for both players if they communicate, or manage with enough optimistic trials to hit on an improved strategy, at least for long repeated iterations with the same players. Under the payoffs given in this section, if Even consistently chooses "heads" and Odd chooses "heads" one in five times, then Even wins +7-4 = 3 / five turns, while Odd wins +4-1 = 3 / five turns, for an average gain of 1.67 / turn each. These are far higher payoffs than the .6 / 0 average gains for each under the mixed strategies recommended. This is in effect an Adam Smithian kind of trade between partners, exploiting the fact that one of them is more "efficient" at getting ahead than the other, as long as the other is incentivized to cooperate. Of course, there are other patterns which would still bring them both ahead, but with unequal payoffs, e.g., if Odd chooses heads 2/5 times, or 1/6 times, and negotiating between the two as to how to split the "rewards" may be complex. And naturally, if Even choose Heads come what may, Odd could exploit that to get more, so Even would have to punish this behavior (e.g., by playing randomly for a while, then going back to Heads-only for a bit to see if Odd gets the hint and behaves). But I'm not deeply familiar with game theory; is this sort of arrangement and negotiation assumed to be ruled out because it can't be enforced or communicated, or is there some subset of game theory which involves this, etc.? ScottForschler (talk) 19:19, 12 September 2021 (UTC)