On the role of chance moves and information in two-person games

The value of information has been the subject of many studies in a strategic context. The central question in these studies is how valuable the information hidden in the chance moves of a game is for one or more of the players. Generally speaking, only the extra possibilities that are beneficial for the players have been considered so far. In this note we study the value of information for a special class of two-person games. For these games we also investigate how “badly” the players can do, both with and without knowing the result of the chance move. In this way one can determine to what extent the players are restricted in their possibilities by the fact that some information is hidden in the chance moves of the games. This allows for a comparison of the influence of the chance move to the control that the players have over the game result.