Maximize your expected payoff!
How high a ranking can you achieve?
You are the agent of a wealthy art collector, Aleks Sovietsky. Your job is to go to an art auction and bid on paintings. You must make each bid based on how much the collector thinks the painting is worth. This is the valuation," which you are given (in the yellow box) before each round of bidding starts. You will be bidding against at least one other collector.
(Click here to find out how the possible valuations of each collector are distributed.)
At the same time that you receive your valuation for the painting, the other collectors also receive their valuations Collector i will follow a written bidding rule suggested by a high-priced consultant. This assigns a bid b(vi) to every possible value vi. This bid will not be revealed to you until after you make your own bid. You don't know how much your opponent thinks a painting is worth; you can only guess based on her bids.
Your mission: Buy the paintings while getting the most value for your money. Your "profit" is shown in a column on the right. You must bid for at least 6 paintings. The high bid wins. In the case of a tie, you will be the winner. The seller may also have announced a minimum acceptable bid. If you do not want to bid at least this amount, bid zero. If both bid zero, there is no winner and the next round begins.
Bids from previous rounds will be recorded as you continue. To see how well you did, press submit scores. Your overall ranking is based on your profit divided by the number of rounds, that is, your average profit.