Oh, I think I see. In a conventional tournament setting, the same idea can apply: if B beats C and A can beat exactly one of them, it’s better to win against B and lose against C rather than vice versa.
This doesn’t usually come up in conventional tournaments because winning is believed to be transitive: making yourself a better player makes you more likely to beat both B and C. Here, on the other hand, there may be trade-offs. For example, it’s probably worthwhile to use a trick that achieves (D,C) against ReallySmartBot if it requires mutually cooperating with CooperateBot, rather than cooperating with the former and exploiting the latter: ReallySmartBot is a dangerous competitor and CooperateBot probably isn’t.
I don’t actually see a way to take this into account in the current metagame setting. But this could be an interesting thing to think about after we know the results.
I guess it bothers me that in the current metagame all the contestants are aiming to win, rather than to maximize their score (except for the ones who are just aiming to troll the rest of us by submitting humorous bots). In that sense the situation is not really a true prisoner’s dilemma.
Oh, I think I see. In a conventional tournament setting, the same idea can apply: if B beats C and A can beat exactly one of them, it’s better to win against B and lose against C rather than vice versa.
This doesn’t usually come up in conventional tournaments because winning is believed to be transitive: making yourself a better player makes you more likely to beat both B and C. Here, on the other hand, there may be trade-offs. For example, it’s probably worthwhile to use a trick that achieves (D,C) against ReallySmartBot if it requires mutually cooperating with CooperateBot, rather than cooperating with the former and exploiting the latter: ReallySmartBot is a dangerous competitor and CooperateBot probably isn’t.
I don’t actually see a way to take this into account in the current metagame setting. But this could be an interesting thing to think about after we know the results.
I guess it bothers me that in the current metagame all the contestants are aiming to win, rather than to maximize their score (except for the ones who are just aiming to troll the rest of us by submitting humorous bots). In that sense the situation is not really a true prisoner’s dilemma.