Of anecdotes and their effectivenes...

Here's an anecdote one of my professors shared in class on Friday to make a larger point about a concept called Gaming Theory; effectively strategizing. I promise you, its worth reading!

Two B-school students have an exam Monday morning. They study hard all weekend and Sunday night comes along. They decide to go out for a drink, end up stone-drunk, hit the sack at 7 am and sleep through most of Monday. Realising they have missed the exam, they approach the professor on Tuesday with the story that they drove out far from the city and ended up with a flat tire.

They couldn't get back to school in time and plead with the professor to allow them a re-take. The professor agrees. In the re-take exam, the first question is pricing policy related and both students negotiate this quickly. Emboldened, they move onto the next question which is worth the remainder of the test! The question states rather simply: "Which tire?!!!"

The students end up giving different answer and the cover is blown.

The larger point of course, was to illustrate the utility of concepts that followed this narration. Concepts that many of us will now remember well for quite a while to come. Way to go, Prof. Dutt! This memory is filed into storage...