Free Yale Course: Game Theory and Strategic Thinking

About this course

Your best decision can depend on what someone else chooses, and on what they think you will do. This free Yale game theory course introduces tools for analyzing that interdependence. Classroom games and examples from economic and social situations make the logic of strategic thinking easier to examine.

Course at a glance

What you’ll learn

• Represent a simple strategic situation with players, options and payoffs.
• Explain dominance and Nash equilibrium in an introductory example.
• Use backward reasoning in a sequential decision problem.
• Recognize how private information changes the analysis.

Skills you’ll gain

• Strategic reasoning
• Incentive analysis
• Decision modeling
• Equilibrium concepts

Course Overview

The course develops concepts such as dominance, Nash equilibrium and backward induction, then moves into credibility, commitment and information differences. Later lectures consider signaling and auctions. Its value lies in learning to make assumptions explicit and compare incentives, rather than treating every interaction as a contest with a single obvious winning move.

How the course develops

• Simultaneous choices: identify players, strategies, incentives and equilibrium ideas.
• Sequential choices: reason backward through decisions and examine whether a promise or threat is credible.
• Information differences: explore how signaling, selection and auction settings affect strategic behavior.

The classroom contains all 24 videos in this official YaleCourses playlist. Use the lesson list to follow the course or search for a topic you want to revisit. Introductory segments, teaching examples and supplementary discussions remain available within this course.

Who is this for?

Students, managers, negotiators and curious learners interested in understanding strategic interactions.

Before you start

Comfort with basic algebra and careful logical reasoning is helpful. No previous game theory course is necessary.

Put the lessons into practice

Model a simple coordination problem with two participants. Write the available choices and outcomes, identify your assumptions, then test how the predicted behavior changes if the incentives or information change.

This optional study activity is provided by WikiFree for independent reflection. It is not a graded Yale assignment. Keep a short record of what you can explain confidently and what you need to revisit; use that record to plan your next study session.

Certificate / Assessment

The public videos can be watched free of charge. This WikiFree listing does not include a Yale certificate, academic credit, a degree, graded assessments or feedback from the instructors. A similarly named course on another platform may have different enrollment, assessment and payment conditions.

The classroom’s Mark complete control records your personal progress. It does not assess your understanding or award a credential. Course examples reflect the recordings; check current sources whenever you need up-to-date professional information.

Frequently asked questions

Provider: Yale. Videos play from the YaleCourses channel on YouTube.