Tit-For-Tat Ain’t Dead

Michael Giberson

Ever since I saw a note about it on Transterrestrial Musings a week ago, I’ve been meaning to write about the Prisoners’ Dilemma tournament organized at the University of Nottingham. For some 20 years, the simple tit-for-tat strategy has reigned as champion over all comers in iterated prisoners’ dilemma games. As Wired describes it, however, a new champion may have emerged.

Or maybe not. Glen Whitman at Agoraphilia suggests that tit-for-tat isn’t dead yet, with a discussion that is better than anything I would have come up with.

Marginal Revolution has also commented on the tournament. The Wikipedia provides a good overview of PD games. Nottingham will host another tournament in 2005, for additional information see www.prisoners-dilemma.com.