Table of Contents
Introduction 1
1 How to Win at Rock-Paper-Scissors 5
2 What Makes a Game IS
3 Game Theory 30
4 Memory, Choice and Perspective 39
5 Playing on Your Expectations 53
6 Feeling the Loss 65
7 Who's the Best Judge? 80
8 Falling for Patterns 90
9 When Random Isn't Random 108
10 Games and Entropy 122
11 The Evolution of Life 134
12 What's Good About Being 'Good'? 152
13 Tic-Tac-Toe and Entangled Pairs 163
14 When Math Doesn't Have All the Answers 170
15 Goldilocks, Three Bears and a Whole Lot of Noise 187
16 Trading to Get What You Want 199
17 Making and Breaking the Rules 211
18 Community of Players 225
19 Emergent Properties and Games 237
Epilogue: Pivot Points and Phase Transitions 251
Endnotes 255
Index 259
Acknowledgments 266