An Experimental Examination of Formal and Informal Rules of a Three-Person Game *

The mathematical enterprise of the theory of games is to derive a solution of particular games and classes of games. A game, say von Neumann and Morgenstern, “is simply the totality of the rules that describe it.” (Von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1953, 6.1, p. 49). A solution, in turn, is a “characterization of ‘rational behavior’” (4.1.4, p. 33). Hence, the content of the mathematical enterprise is to analyze the rules in order to derive an optimal expectation.