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Since my background is poker, I'll use an (overly simplified) example from there. There are situations where you want to manipulate your range (set of hands) i
by Sambdala 12y ago
Since my background is poker, I'll use an (overly simplified) example from there.
There are situations where you want to manipulate your range (set of hands) in a given spot so that your actions make up a certain distribution.
For example, if you want your range to be made up of 30% bluffs, you can figure out how often you get to that spot with a bluff and how often you get to that spot with a strong hand. Since you're always continuing with the strong hand, you can then know what percentage of the time you need to continue to bluff in order to accomplish this. Since it doesn't matter which of those hands you choose to bluff with, it generally makes sense to use randomness to decide in the moment.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoI don't play poker, but from what I understand, the reason for including randomness in your decision is to throw your opponents off. I.e. You're playing against people who try to predict your behavior, so you throw in a random component to make it harder for them. In decisions not involving active adversaries, deciding at random doesn't give you anything over a deterministic solution.
- antimagic 12y agoNearly, but just to nitpick, you're not including randomness, you're actively making a choice to make the resulting pattern difficult to distinguish from randomness. So, sometimes you raise by a large amount because you have a strong hand. You don't want other players to be identify that you have a strong hand by the fact that you just offered a large raise, so you have to also bluff sometimes, raising when you really don't have the cards. Your actions are not random, but they are perceived as random by the other players.