Towards a Black-Box Solver for Finite Games:
Finding All Nash Equilibria with Gambit and PHCpack

Theodore L. Turocy
Department of Economics
Texas A&M University
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Abstract:

This paper describes a new implementation of an algorithm to find all isolated Nash equilibria in a finite strategic game. The implementation uses
the game theory software package Gambit to generate systems of polynomial equations which are necessary conditions for a Nash equilibrium, and
polyhedral homotopy continuation via the package PHCpack to compute solutions to the systems. Numerical experiments to characterize the performance of the implementation are reported. In addition, the current and future roles of support enumeration methods in the context of methods for computing Nash equilibria are discussed.

Version history

Current version dated March 6, 2007. Available in: [pdf].

Software

The computer codes will be made available on the Gambit website.