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There have been a couple of questions about Nash Equillibrium, I'm not by any means an expert, and I apologize for any errors but here's some general info.
Adam Smith argued that the best strategy in a competitive situation was to do whats in your own self-interest at any cost. Get the most points for yourself if it means rolling over the competition. In the late 1940's the RAND Corporation developed a game called "Prisoners Dillemna" which is used as a simulation for any competitive situation from international affairs to psychology. The basic idea is that two criminal partners are arrested and both are placed in separate interrogation rooms and given the same information. They can "defect" and confess and implicate the other guy or they can "stonewall" and refuse to talk. If both stonewall they'll both get off with a slap on the wrist, if both defect they'll both get, say 5 years in jail, if one stonewalls and one defects the one who defects will get off with limited jail time and the one who stonewalls will get it.
Logically, when faced with Prisoner's Dillemna the best strategy is to defect, because no matter what the other guy does you'll be better off. So you could say that the best think to do in an INDIVIDUAL match in FIRST is to NOT cooperate with your opponent and to do whatever you need to do to maximize your score. Unfortunately Prisoner's Dilemna doesn't accurately describe FIRST, FIRST is itterative, we play the same game over and over again. So what John Nash (his life was chronicled in "A Beautiful Mind") did was make a Prisoner's Dillemna Tournament, he played the same game with a group of people over and over again, and a funny thing happened, the players who defected in every match ended up with hundreds of years in jail while those who cooperated in every match did much better. Think about it, if you defect in every match, sometimes you'll do very well and sometimes you'll end up with a significant ammount of jailtime, and the people who play you will gradually learn to defect as well so you'll ALWAYS end up getting jailtime in each match. If on the other hand you stonewall you'll get screwed on a couple of matches but gradually people will realize that you'll both get off easier by cooperating with you and stonewall as well. Try it with your team, I guarentee that these are the reults you'll see.
Nash Equillibrium means that if in every match you do what's best for yourself AND whats best for your opponents, over time you'll come out better than if you did just what was best for yourself.
FIRST isn't an exact corralation, but I suspect that Woodie & Co. had this in mind when they designed the game. If you attempt to tie on every match you will get lowers cores on a few matches than if you had won and higher scores than if you had lost, over time you'll end up doing better than if you had just gone after the opponents in every match.
I don't know, maybe using this strategy in every match won't work, it doesn't satisfy the human need for conflict for example, but its definitely worth putting in your playbook and not banning.
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