HOW TO WIN AT ROCK PAPER SCISSORS.

HOW TO WIN AT ROCK PAPER SCISSORS. This article in Slate by Brad Fox (link via Instapundit) bore the intriguing title: “What Are Some Strategies for Winning ‘Rock Paper Scissors’?” Intriguing, because I was taught that the game theory answer to such a question is that a game like this is pure luck; provided that you randomize your moves, your expectation of winning would be 50%—no better, no worse. The article is by the head referee of the World Rock Paper Scissors Society, and he claims that there are some players who consistently finish in the levels in the annual world championships, thereby proving that there is skill involved in the game. Fox notes that there are statistical tendencies for North Americans—both sexes choose rock most frequently. Women choose scissors over paper more often; men put paper second and scissors third. Fox says that successful poker players are successful at rock paper scissors. The ability to read your opponent is the key to success in both games. Randomizing doesn’t work because people are unable to randomize numbers on the spot and fall into patterns, especially when the opponent speeds the game up. (I have posted, for example here, about how people don’t have an intuitive idea of randomness—it is counterintuitive that if a coin is flipped 100 times, there is a 10% chance of getting a run of ten heads or ten tails).