A Brief History of Game

Theory
From various sources
The first known
solution to such a
two-person zero-
sum game is
contained in
a letter dated 13
November 1713
from James
Waldegrave to
Pierre-Remond de
Montmort
concerning a two
player version of
the card game le
Her.
De Montmort
wrote to the
mathematician
Nicolas Bernoulli
(perhaps best
known, at least
among
economists, for
his formulation of
the St.
Petersburg
Paradox).
The great French
mathematician
and probabilist,
Emile Borel
published four
notes on
strategic games
between 1921
and 1927.
Borel gave the first formal definition
of what we shall call a mixed
strategy and demonstrated the
existence of the minimax solution to
two player zero-sum games with
either three or five possible
strategies. He initially conjectured
that games with more strategies
would not have such a solution but,
being unable to find a counter
example, he later considered that to
be an open question.
That question was
answered by the
Hungarian (and
later American)
mathematician
John von
Neumann in 1928.
Wikipedia describes von Neumann as
having made major contributions to a
vast range of fields, including set
theory, functional analysis, quantum
mechanics, ergodic theory, continuous
geometry, economics and game
theory, computer science, numerical
analysis, hydrodynamics (of
explosions), and statistics, as well as
many other mathematical fields.
In 1913 the German
mathematician Ernst
Zermelo, most famous
for his axiomatisation
of set theory, gave a
statement concerning
a result about what we
would now call
extensive form games.
In a game like chess
either white can
guarantee that he wins
or black can guarantee
that he wins or both
players can guarantee
There were a number of
substantial advances in
the book by von
Neumann and
Morgenstern: the
axiomatic development
of the theory of
expected utility; the
formal definition of
normal form games and
extensive form games;
the elaboration of the
minmax theorem for
two-person zero sum
games; and the
definition of what
are now called
cooperative or
In the early 1950s
John Nash
[1950,1951]
proposed a
definition of
equilibrium, that
we now call the
Nash equilibrium,
that has become
the central solution
concept for
noncooperative
game theory.
Nash as an
older man,
after he won
the Nobel
Prize in
Economics.
Thats not
Nash. Thats
Russel Crowe
in one of his
best
performances
in a film about
Nashs life.
1994 Nobel Prize in Economics was
award to John Nash, John C. Harsanyi
and Reinhard Selten "for their
pioneering analysis of equilibria in the
theory of non-cooperative games".
In two papers,
Extensive Games
(1950) and
Extensive Games
and the Problem of
Information (1953),
H. W. Kuhn
included the
formulation of
extensive form
games which is
currently used, and
also some basic
Lloyd Shapley in his
paper A Value for
N-Person Games
characterised, by a
set of axioms, a
solution concept
that associates with
each coalitional
game,v, a unique
out-come, v. This
solution in now
known as the
Shapley Value.
In the same year, 1953, Shapley
published a paper on Stochastic
Games, introducing a new and
important model of games.
In 2012,
Shapley won the
Nobel Prize in
Economics with
Al Roth "for the
theory of stable
allocations and
the practice of
market design".
Robert J. Aumann's
greatest
contribution was in
the realm of
repeated games,
which are
situations in which
players encounter
the same situation
over and over
again.
Aumann was the first to define the
concept of correlated equilibrium in
game theory, which is a type of
equilibrium in non-cooperative
games that is more flexible than the
classical Nash equilibrium.
Furthermore, Aumann has introduced
the first purely formal account of the
notion of common knowledge in
game theory. He collaborated with
Lloyd Shapley on the Aumann-
Shapley value. He is also known for
his agreement theorem, in which he
argues that under his given
In 2005 Aumann
won the Nobel
Prize in Economics
with Thomas C.
Schelling "for
having enhanced
our understanding
of conflict and
cooperation
through game-
theory analysis".