Abstract

In this paper we examine the expected probabilities of survival of each of the three participants in sequential truels assuming uniform distributions for their marksmanships. We start by discussing the two most common sequential truels, one in which everyone has to attempt to eliminate someone on each turn, and the other in which the weakest marksman has the option to abstain. We conjecture that the expected winning probabilities in sequential truels cannot be calculated analytically, and so we estimate these probabilities using multiple computational approaches. We also calculate the expected winning probabilities of each of the participants for one fixed marksmanship at a time. At the end we show that as the three marksmanships approach 0, the sequential truel approaches the simultaneous truel and this explains some aspects of the sequential truel for small marksmanships.

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