Simple search methods for finding a Nash equilibrium

We present two simple search methods for computing a sample Nash equilibrium in a normal-form game: one for 2-player games and one for n-player games. Both algorithms bias the search towards supports that are small and balanced, and employ a backtracking procedure to efficiently explore these supports. Making use of a new comprehensive testbed, we test these algorithms on many classes of games, and show that they perform well against the state of the art-the Lemke-Howson algorithm for 2-player games, and Simplicial Subdivision and Govindan-Wilson for n-player games. (C) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.