Related papers: Optimal Strategies and Rules for the Game of Horse
We study an evolutionary game of chance in which the probabilities for different outcomes (e.g., heads or tails) depend on the amount wagered on those outcomes. The game is perhaps the simplest possible probabilistic game in which…
Much work in the parimutuel betting literature has discussed estimating event outcome probabilities or developing optimal wagering strategies, particularly for horse race betting. Some betting pools, however, involve betting not just on a…
In a competitive sport, every little thing matters. Yet, many sports leave some large levers out of the reach of the teams, and in the hands of fate. In cricket, world's second most popular sport by some measures, one such lever---the…
Multi-round competitions often double or triple the points awarded in the final round, calling it a bonus, to maximize spectators' excitement. In a two-player competition with $n$ rounds, we aim to derive the optimal bonus size to maximize…
Poker is a large complex game of imperfect information, which has been singled out as a major AI challenge problem. Recently there has been a series of breakthroughs culminating in agents that have successfully defeated the strongest human…
Predicting the outcome of sports events is a hard task. We quantify this difficulty with a coefficient that measures the distance between the observed final results of sports leagues and idealized perfectly balanced competitions in terms of…
We consider a variation of a cops and robbers game in which the cop---here referred to as "hunter"---is not constrained by the graph but must play in the dark against a "mole." We characterize the graphs---which we will call…
The optimal value computation for turned-based stochastic games with reachability objectives, also known as simple stochastic games, is one of the few problems in $NP \cap coNP$ which are not known to be in $P$. However, there are some…
The objective of this work is to provide a mathematical analysis on how a Thoroughbred horse should regulate its speed over the course of a race to optimize performance. Because Thoroughbred horses are not capable of running the whole race…
Football forecasting models traditionally rate teams on past match results, that is based on the number of goals scored. Goals, however, involve a high element of chance and thus past results often do not reflect the performances of the…
In the paper it is proven that the two-players turn-based stochastic game "Risk or Safety" has a unique solution. Both players need to play the same strategy if they want to maximize their winning chances. An analytical method based on the…
As 3-point shooting in the NBA continues to increase, the importance of perimeter defense has never been greater. Perimeter defenders are often evaluated by their ability to tightly contest shots, but how exactly does contesting a jump shot…
We explain a highly efficient algorithm for playing the simplest type of dots and boxes endgame optimally (by which we mean "in such a way so as to maximise the number of boxes that you take"). The algorithm is sufficiently simple that it…
We report an emergence of bifurcation in basketball, a single-particle system governed by Newtonian mechanics. When shooting the basketball, the obvious control parameters are the launch speed and the launch angle. We propose to use the…
In this paper we present a novel approach to optimise tactical and strategic decision making in football (soccer). We model the game of football as a multi-stage game which is made up from a Bayesian game to model the pre-match decisions…
Optimizing the performance of a basketball offense may be viewed as a network problem, wherein each play represents a "pathway" through which the ball and players may move from origin (the in-bounds pass) to goal (the basket). Effective…
In the game "Super Six", after successfully getting rid of a stick by rolling with the die a number that is not occupied, the player has the choice to continue to roll the die or to stop and to hand over the die to their opponent. The…
A physical model is developed, which suggests a pathway to determining the optimal release conditions for a basketball free throw. Theoretical framework is supported by Monte Carlo simulations and a series of free throws performed and…
An algorithm based on backward induction is devised in order to compute the optimal sequence of games to be played in Parrondo games. The algorithm can be used to find the optimal sequence for any finite number of turns or in the steady…
We develop a new method for stochastic optimization using the Bayesian statistics approach. More precisely, we optimize parameters of chess engines as those data are available to us, but the method should apply to all situations where we…