This Slideshare presentation is a partial preview of the full business document. To view and download the full document, please go here: http://flevy.com/browse/business-document/game-theory-analysis-for-the-movie-beautiful-mind-554 An example of Game Theory that analyzes the famous bar scene of the movie "The Beautiful Mind" Starring Russell Crowe.

1. Game theory Analysis for the movie “The Beautiful Mind”
Situation
The situation in the clip is that the four guys propose approaching the blonde girl on their own
stating that as per Adam Smith “In competition, the individual ambition serves the common
good”. Nash however finds this approach counter-productive and suggests that if they all go for
the blonde it will work against them and she will refuse all four of them. And after the refusal if
they go for their friends, then they would also refuse as they wouldn’t like to be the second
choices. Hence, he suggests that they should each go for blonde’s friends and get the girls. This
situation can be easily interpreted as a two stage game, where the payoff for getting one girl is +1
and not getting a girl is -1. In the first stage, the guys have two options – 1) Approach the blonde
directly 2) Approach her friends and ignore the blonde. In the second stage, there if the blonde
says “yes” one guy gets her while the others don’t get any. If the blonde says “no” then
approaching her friends won’t get anything as they won’t like to be second choices. It can be
shown in the extensive form below –
1
Go for the blonde
Go for her friends,
ignore the blonde
2
Blonde says yes
Blonde says no,
approach her friends
+1 -5
+4