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Prisoner's Dilemma Tournament

Robert Axelrod's famous tournament where different strategies compete in iterated Prisoner's Dilemma games. Surprisingly, the simple "Tit-for-Tat" strategy often wins by being nice, retaliatory, and forgiving.

Payoff Matrix

Cooperate Defect
Cooperate 3, 3 0, 5
Defect 5, 0 1, 1
100
5

Strategy Rankings

About the Prisoner's Dilemma

Two criminals are arrested and interrogated separately. Each can either cooperate (stay silent) or defect (betray the other).

Strategies in this tournament:

Tit-for-Tat: Cooperate first, then copy opponent's last move

Always Cooperate: Never defect, always cooperate

Always Defect: Never cooperate, always betray

Grudger: Cooperate until opponent defects once, then always defect

Random: Randomly choose to cooperate or defect (50/50)

Tit-for-Two-Tats: Only retaliate after two consecutive defections

Pavlov: Repeat move if rewarded (3+ points), switch if punished