How to win at rock, paper, scissors

Mark Frauenfelder 9:47 am Tue Jan 13, 2015

Image: Shutterstock

Image: Shutterstock

In 2005 a Japanese electronics firm decided to sell its collection of four French impressionist paintings. Christie’s and Sotheby’s courted the company. The CEO asked the auction houses to play a game of Rock Paper Scissors to determine who would sell the paintings. The representative for Christie's researched Rock Paper Scissors strategies, and used the advice of one of his co-worker's children: “Everybody knows you always start with scissors.” This proved to be good advice in this case, because Sotheby's chose Paper. Christie's sold the paintings for $(removed) million, and earned a $(removed) million commission.

William Poundstone (author of many books I've enjoyed, including Big Secrets, Fortune's Formula, Prisoner's Dilemma, and an entire book about Rock Paper Scissors) starts off his article about Rock Paper Scissors strategies with the above anecdote. He looks at strategies involving statistics (in pro tournaments Rock gets thrown 35.4%, Paper 35%, and Scissors 29.6%), doublethink, tells, scripts, and pattern recognition. His conclusion:

Scissors is the least popular choice, and men favour rock. Both are reasons to choose paper in a one-shot match.
Announce what you’re going to throw and do it. Most players figure you won’t go through with it.

Enjoy a relaxing half hour compilation of rain scenes in videogames

Jez Burrows edited this "supercut of video game characters taking a break from solving crime or shooting people to enjoy a meditative minute of miserable weather." "It's Rain in Games,… READ THE REST
Peculiarities and miscellanea of the Street Fighter series

Capcom's Street Fighter is one of the most famous and expansively franchised games in history, rolling mercilessly on since 1987. RAE compiled an exhaustive collection of miscellaneous details, from hidden… READ THE REST
Non-Euclidean game worlds

Code Parade (also on itch.io) is developing a "hyperbolic" 3D game engine (download) where a line is not necessarily the shortest path between two places. I was impressed by the… READ THE REST
Short Post, just one paragraph

Dessert cheesecake wafer bear claw fruitcake. Fruitcake chupa chups donut candy canes marzipan. Apple pie sweet roll tart chocolate cake macaroon marshmallow carrot cake gummi bears sweet. Pastry sugar plum… READ THE REST
Save 50% on a 1-year subscription to Dashlane's premium password manager

We all know vital information about ourselves and our private digital accounts can be compromised by cybercriminals. However, many would be frightened to know just how compromised they and their… READ THE REST
The Bite Helper removes the itch of a mosquito bite in seconds

While mosquitoes have certainly earned their title as the deadliest animal on earth, their impact on most of our lives is usually a lot less consequential. But even though they… READ THE REST