A strategy of No-Tricks that sets the stage for unconditional cooperators in Prisoner’s Dilemma

The evolution of strategic cooperation between competitive countries in international relations may be effectively modeled by the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. Win-stay-lose-shift (WSLS) might be considered the most successful strategy since the seminal computer tournaments organized by Robert Axelrod. However, WSLS as a strategy to explain the evolution of cooperation is a failure in the sense that, whereas it cooperates with unconditional defection (ALLD) in every second round, WSLS ruthlessly exploits unconditional cooperation (ALLC) after an error of his own. Here we propose a promising cooperative strategy of No-Tricks, which wins against WSLS and some other well-known strategies, particularly inhibiting the evolution of ALLD. Remarkably, the prevalence of No-Tricks ensures the survival of ALLC, while the survival of ALLC is the toehold for a plethora of other strategies, which in turn render impossible the ALLC invasion of No-Tricks by neutral drift.