Genes, Games, and Poker

I've been reading Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. What I love most about the book is how my mind is just overflowing with genetic systems, simulatable quantitative machines; I'm just dying to code up some simulations of the systems he exposes so eloquently in the book. Every few pages, a new system comes into view. I have to pause, just stare into the void as my mind runs fast, imagining the mathematics needed to construct from the theory a working computer model.

This reading has led me to do a little more in-depth reading on game theory, in particular, the graduate Game Theory course from the mathematics section of MIT's OpenCourseWare. There, you find the polar opposite of Dawkins' readable eloquence. Slides of precise definitions, theorems, sparingly annotated. But the mathematics are intriguing.

So, for the todo list (to be done simultaneously):

• Serious math-based game theory course. Learn the good stuff. Von Neumann, Nash, et al. Doubles as math workout.
• Implement simulations of several of Dawkins' illuminating genetic systems. Doubles as a Python learning experience.
• What does this have to do with poker?

Bring it on.

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Originally published on Quasiphysics.