A mixed strategy is an assignment of a probability to each pure strategy. When enlisting mixed strategy, it is often because the game doesn't allow for a rational description in specifying a pure strategy for the game. This allows for a player to randomly select a pure strategy. (See the following section for an illustration.) Since probabilities are continuous, there are infinitely many mixed strategies available to a player. Since probabilities are being assigned to strategies for a specific player when discussing the payoffs of certain scenarios the payoff must be referred to as "expected payoff".