Related papers: The standard deviation effect (or why one should s…
We consider a dynamic model of interconnected banks. New banks can emerge, and existing banks can default, creating a birth-and-death setup. Microscopically, banks evolve as independent geometric Brownian motions. Systemic effects are…
Through a stochastic control theoretic approach, we analyze reputation games where a strategic long-lived player acts in a sequential repeated game against a collection of short-lived players. The key assumption in our model is that the…
Given a graph G with n vertices and k players, each of which is placing a facility on one of the vertices of G, we define the score of the i'th player to be the number of vertices for which, among all players, the facility placed by the…
In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of the home team bunting in extra innings of Major League Baseball games when the game is tied in the bottom of the inning. Using methods rooted in causal inference, we show that teams choose…
We consider a card guessing game with complete feedback. A ordered deck of n cards labeled 1 up to n is riffle-shuffled exactly one time. Then, the goal of the game is to maximize the number of correct guesses of the cards, where one after…
Major League Baseball (MLB) recently limited pitchers to three pickoff attempts, creating a cat-and-mouse game between pitcher and runner. Each failed attempt adds pressure on the pitcher to avoid using another, and the runner can intensify…
In simple card games, cards are dealt one at a time and the player guesses each card sequentially. We study problems where feedback (e.g. correct/incorrect) is given after each guess. For decks with repeated values (as in blackjack where…
Billiards tables - a minimal model for particles moving in a confined region - are known to present classical (and quantum) different features according to their shape, ranging from strongly chaotic to integrable dynamics. Here we consider…
We show analytically how the fluctuations (i.e. standard deviation) in the Minority Game (MG) can decrease below the random coin-toss limit if the agents use more general, stochastic strategies. This suppression of the standard deviation…
With the aid of mathematical modelling (basic tool is the random walk with absorbing barriers) we derive subsequent formulas to study the effect of different versions of possible rules. For different rules the probability of winning a game,…
Statistical analysis is a major aspect of baseball, from player averages to historical benchmarks and records. Much of baseball fanfare is based around players exceeding the norm, some in a single game and others over a long career. Career…
The infield shift has been increasingly used as a defensive strategy in baseball in recent years. Along with the upward trend in its usage, the notoriety of the shift has grown, as it is believed to be responsible for the recent decline in…
Consider a uniformly random deck consisting of cards labelled by numbers from $1$ through $n$, possibly with repeats. A guesser guesses the top card, after which it is revealed and removed and the game continues. What is the expected number…
We propose a model of inter-bank lending and borrowing which takes into account clearing debt obligations. The evolution of log-monetary reserves of $N$ banks is described by coupled diffusions driven by controls with delay in their drifts.…
We study the existence of mixed-strategy equilibria in concurrent games played on graphs. While existence is guaranteed with safety objectives for each player, Nash equilibria need not exist when players are given arbitrary terminal-reward…
We establish a general formula for the distribution of the score in table tennis. We use this formula to derive the probability distribution (and hence the expectation and variance) of the number of rallies necessary to achieve any given…
A deck of $n$ cards is shuffled by repeatedly moving the top card to one of the bottom $k_n$ positions uniformly at random. We give upper and lower bounds on the total variation mixing time for this shuffle as $k_n$ ranges from a constant…
Quantum computers that process information by harnessing the remarkable power of quantum mechanics are increasingly being put to practical use. In the future, their impact will be felt in numerous fields, including in online casino games.…
Each of two players, by turns, rolls a dice several times accumulating the successive scores until he decides to stop, or he rolls an ace. When stopping, the accumulated turn score is added to the player account and the dice is given to his…
Mechanical shufflers used in many casinos employ a card shuffling scheme called \emph{shelf shuffling}. In a single-shelf shuffling, cards arrive sequentially, and each incoming card is independently placed on the top or the bottom of a…