Welcome

The Séminaire parisien de Théorie des Jeux is an open, inter-institutional, multi-disciplined seminar which covers all fields of game theory. It takes place on Monday from 11:00 to 12:00 am at Institut Henri Poincaré, 11 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris 5ème. MAP

You will find the program for the current academic year on the page 2026/2027 and the program for past years on the page Archives.

The junior seminar welcomes PhD students in game theory to present their work.  You will find the program for the current academic year on the page Junior Seminar 2026/2027.

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Next seminar:  

November 09, 2026 (room 201 Pierre Grisvard): 

Angelo Fanelli (LAMSADE)

Title: Computing Approximate Nash Equilibria in Potential Games

Abstract: Potential games are a fundamental class of games with applications in algorithmic game theory, multi-agent systems, and distributed optimization. Although pure Nash equilibria are guaranteed to exist, computing them is computationally intractable for many natural subclasses. This has motivated extensive research on efficient algorithms for computing approximate equilibria. In this talk, we focus on payoff-maximization potential games, for which strong approximation guarantees are known only for restricted subclasses. We investigate the limitations of existing algorithms based on unilateral improvement moves, showing that these approaches may fail to provide any finite approximation guarantee even for simple potential games. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a general algorithmic framework based on coordinated moves by small groups of players. The approximation guarantee and the number of improvement moves are controlled by two natural game parameters, the stretch and the spread. We also establish explicit bounds for games with bounded interaction degree and show how our framework generalizes previous results for constraint satisfaction games.

Organizers

Michael Greinecker (CEPS), michael(dot)greinecker(at)ens(minus)paris(minus)saclay(dot)fr

Frédéric Koessler (CNRS, HEC Paris), frederic.koessler[at]gmail[dot]com

Maël Le Treust  (CNRS,  LAMSADE, PSL), mael.le-treust[at]cnrs[dot]fr

Christina Pawlowitsch (Lemma, Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas), christina.pawlowitsch[at]assas-universite[dot]fr

Yannick Viossat (CEREMADE, PSL), viossat[at]ceremade[dot]dauphine[dot]fr

Former organizers

Joseph Abdou; Bernard De Meyer; Françoise Forges; Olivier Gossner;  Frederic Koessler; Marie Laclau; Rida Laraki; Chantal Marlats; Lucie Ménager; Vianney Perchet; Jérôme Renault; Dinah Rosenberg; Sylvain Sorin; Tristan Tomala; Xavier Venel; Nicolas Vieille; Guillaume Vigeral; Bruno Ziliotto

Past conference: 30 Years of Game Theory at Institut Henri Poincaré, October 06-10, 2025, Paris.