There’s actually a version of rock paper scissors you can play with special dice: a probabilistic version. Check out some of the thrilling action at the 2006 competition in Washington DC. If you want more ideas, here’s a place to start.Īnd if you get good, you might be able to compete in an international RPS tournament (I’m not kidding). So if they play rock twice, you should definitely play scissors next time since they won’t be playing rock. Another trick is that people will rarely play the same move 3 times in a row: it feels non-random.
Well, there are more cunning tricks you can put up your sleeve. People who’ve just lost a round are likely to play the move that just beat them. Surely your opponent would notice you’re playing paper over and over and over, and eventually start playing scissors, foiling your strategy! What can you do? The idea of “play paper because men play rock more often” breaks down pretty fast if you play several games in a row. So suddenly, we have a tiny bit of strategy: and it changes based on what sort of strategy your opponent is using! Of course, if the other player has also read this blog, they might decide to play paper, in which case perhaps you should play scissors? So there is strategy after all Bart thinks “Good ol’ rock, nothin’ beats that!”.
Lisa thinks “Poor predictable Bart: always takes rock”. For example, by analysing a huge amount of data, you find that men are very slightly more likely to pick rock, and women are very slightly more likely to pick scissors Why? Who knows! Think back to The Simpsons: Bart and Lisa decide to play one day. But humans don’t play randomly, even if they try. It is true that if your opponent is playing truly randomly, there is no strategy you can use to gain an advantage. It’s a game where there is no strategy, no skill, just pure randomness: pure fairness. We all know it: rock breaks scissors, scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock (… surely a rock could still tear through the paper but we can let that slide).
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