Safe coin bias when the opponent chooses second
Question
Alice and Bob each choose the heads probability of their own coin, then both toss. If both show heads, Alice pays Bob $6; if both show tails, Alice pays Bob $4; if they differ, Bob pays Alice $5. Alice must announce her probability before Bob picks his . The set of for which Bob's expected profit is at most whatever he picks is an interval with rational endpoints. Find .
Short answer
. Bob's expected profit simplifies to , which is linear in , so he picks or . Requiring both and gives , of width .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
- Worked Examples — Probability Trees, Monty Hall, and Bayesian Updating
- Expectation, Mean, and Variance
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