The Prisoner's Dilemma League opens next week. Eight clubs, each one run by a single game theory rule, playing a double round robin of 14 matchdays and 56 matches. Every duel on the pitch is one round of an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma: a player either co-operates, which means competing patiently and honestly for the ball, or defects, which means pressing and challenging without restraint.
The clubs are Amberdale Union (Always Cooperate), Blackmoor United (Always Defect), Almsbury Albion (Generous TFT), Holdfast Athletic (Grudger), Bellford County (Pavlov), Fluxton Rovers (Random), Warehaven Wanderers (Suspicious TFT) and Mirrowick Town (Tit For Tat).
The question is the one Robert Axelrod asked in 1980 and answered with a computer tournament: over a long series of encounters, does co-operation actually win? Axelrod's answer was that it does, provided the co-operation has teeth. Tit For Tat won his tournament without beating a single opponent head to head, simply by refusing to be exploited and remaining available for the good outcome.
A football season is a longer and less forgiving version of the same test. Every club has committed to its rule for the whole campaign, whatever it costs them, and none of them may deviate from it once the season is under way.
Matches are played across each weekend, four to a matchday, with the review following on the Monday. Results are posted here at full time.