Generalized strategies in the minority game - art. no. 017102

We show analytically how the fluctuations (i.e., standard deviation sigma) in the minority game can decrease below the random coin-toss limit if the a gents use more general, stochastic strategies. This suppression of sigma re sults from a cancellation between the actions of a crowd, in which agents a ct collectively and make the same decision, and those of an anticrowd, in w hich agents act collectively by making the opposite decision to the crowd.