English

Gambler's Ruin and the ICM

Probability 2021-04-20 v3

Abstract

Consider gambler's ruin with three players, 1, 2, and 3, having initial capitals AA, BB, and CC units. At each round a pair of players is chosen (uniformly at random) and a fair coin flip is made resulting in the transfer of one unit between these two players. Eventually, one of the players is eliminated and play continues with the remaining two. Let σS3\sigma\in S_3 be the elimination order (e.g., σ=132\sigma=132 means player 1 is eliminated first and player 3 is eliminated second, leaving player 2 with A+B+CA+B+C units). We seek approximations (and exact formulas) for the elimination order probabilities PA,B,C(σ)P_{A,B,C}(\sigma). Exact, as well as arbitrarily precise, computation of these probabilities is possible when N:=A+B+CN:=A+B+C is not too large. Linear interpolation can then give reasonable approximations for large NN. One frequently used approximation, the independent chip model (ICM), is shown to be inadequate. A regression adjustment is proposed, which seems to give good approximations to the elimination order probabilities.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2011.07610,
  title  = {Gambler's Ruin and the ICM},
  author = {Persi Diaconis and Stewart N. Ethier},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.07610},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

32 pages, 5 figure files