The Disadvantage of Too Much Success

DOI10.2307/2690629MaRDI QIDQ2747357zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Reginald Koo, Martin L. Jones

Publication date 14 October 2001

Published in Mathematics Magazine (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.2307/2690629

zbMATH Keywords

coin-tossing modelsexpected reward maximizationstochastic gamesstopping criterion

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial probability (60C05) Stochastic games, stochastic differential games (91A15) Decision theory for games (91A35)

Review text

The authors propose three coin-tossing models in which the concept of ``to much success is defined as the occurrence of success runs of length \(r\), where \(r\) is a positive integer. When such a success run occurs, play terminates and the player has no further opportunities to earn rewards. In each of the three proposed models, a sequence of independent coin tosses occurs with a fixed success probability \(p\). The objective of the winning strategy is to choose the success probability \(p\) so as to maximize the expected reward before the stopping criterion applies.

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(3)

• Failure is also an option
• The advantage of the coin toss for the new overtime system in the National Football League
• Aesop's moral on success

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