Mixed strategy equilibria — Nash (NE) and maximin (MM) — are cornerstones of game theory, but their empirical relevance has always been questionable. We study in the laboratory two games, each with a unique NE and a unique (and distinct) MM in completely mixed strategies. Treatment variables include the matching protocol (pairwise random vs population mean matching), whether time is discrete or continuous, and whether players can specify explicit mixtures or only pure strategy realizations. NE mixes predict observed behavior relatively well in population mean matching treatments, and predict better than MM in all treatments. However, in most random pairwise treatments, uniform mixes predict better than NE. Regret-based and sign preserving dynamics capture regularities across all treatments.

混合策略均衡——纳什 (NE) 和最大值 (MM)——是博弈论的基石，但它们的实证相关性一直存在疑问。我们在实验室中研究了两个游戏，每个游戏都有一个独特的 NE 和一个完全混合策略的独特（且不同的）MM。处理变量包括匹配协议（成对随机与总体均值匹配）、时间是离散的还是连续的，以及玩家是否可以指定显式混合或仅实现纯策略。NE 混合在群体均值匹配处理中相对较好地预测观察到的行为，并且在所有处理中比 MM 预测更好。然而，在大多数随机成对处理中，均匀混合比 NE 预测更好。基于遗憾和符号保留的动态捕捉所有治疗的规律。