The Stall Duel, Scored

One worked market-stall duel shows minimax scoring with numbers instead of wins and losses.

You choose one of three stall spots — Fountain, Gate, or Market Hall; a rival selling the same pastries then sets up in response, and their gain is your loss. Scouting gives your profit, in tens of dollars, for each pairing. Fountain's three outcomes: 4, 9, 6. Gate's: 8, 2, 11. Hall's: 7, 5, 10. Score backward. Each rival-fork takes its minimum — the rival picks whatever hurts you most — so Fountain becomes 4, Gate becomes 2, Hall becomes 5. Your fork takes the maximum of 4, 2, and 5: choose Market Hall, and the duel's minimax value is 5 — fifty dollars guaranteed whatever the rival does, and fifty is also all the rival will ever concede.