ABSTRACT

The theory of two-person zero-sum games that was studied in Chapter 2 was relatively clear, precise, and successful. When we enlarge our study to

k

-person games, for

k

>

2, or when we lift the restriction to zero-sum games, the conceptual playing field becomes much harder to survey and conclusive results are sometimes harder or impossible to obtain. Unfortunately, most of the important real-life games are either

k

-person games with

k

>

2 or non-zero-sum. Nevertheless, not all is lost. Analogues of some of the notions and results of the two-person zero-sum theory can be found and will be developed in this chapter. Moreover, the variety and intricacy of the problems encountered in the larger setting have offered and still offer a host of interesting challenges.