Ever since modern game theory-the scientific study of interactive, rational decision making-achieved prominence in the mid-20th century, it has proven instrumental in helping us understand how and why we make decisions. Game theory has become an invaluable tool for economists, underpinning the theories of five Nobel Prize winners in economics; helps corporate decision makers through the alternatives of complex negotiations where thousands of jobs and billions of dollars may be at stake; plays a crucial role in international diplomacy and military strategy, influencing the fates of nations even when that influence may well be invisible to the uninitiated; and provides insights into the origins of human behaviors, not only for psychologists seeking to understand why we act as we do, but also for evolutionary biologists asking how those patterns of actions, as human strategies, were handed down.

Part 1: Disc 1. Lecture 1. The world of game theory -- Lecture 2. The nature of the game -- Lecture 3. The real life chessboard: sequential games -- Lecture 4. Life's little games: the 2x2 classic games -- Lecture 5. Guessing right: simultaneous move games -- Lecture 6. Practical applications of game theory / Disc 2. Lecture 7. A random walk: dealing with chance events -- Lecture 8. Pure competition: constant-sum games -- Lecture 9. Mixed strategies and nonzero-sum games -- Lecture 10. Threats, promises and commitments -- Lecture 11. Credibility, deterrence and compellence -- Lecture 12. Incomplete and imperfect information / Part 2: Disc 3. Lecture 13. Whom can you trust?: signaling and screening -- Lecture 14. Encouraging productivity: incentive schemes -- Lecture 15. The persistence of memory: repeated games -- Lecture 16. Does this stuff really work? -- Lecture 17. The tragedy of the commons -- Lecture 18. Games in motion: evolutionary game theory / Disc 4. Lecture 19. Game theory and economics: oligopolies -- Lecture 20. Voting: determining the will of the people -- Lecture 21. Auctions and the winner's curse -- Lecture 22. Bargaining and cooperative games -- Lecture 23. Game theory and business: co-opetition -- Lecture 24. All the world's a game.