"The game of rock-paper-scissors exhibits collective cyclic motions which cannot be understood by the Nash equilibrium concept."<p>This is complete bullshit. It is well understood that if your opponent is not playing an optimum strategy, you can gain an advantage by shifting away from the Nash equillibrium yourself.<p>Example: Image a player that always picks "Paper". By shifting away from a random choice (Nash optimum) to just always selecting "Scissors" will net you a 100% win rate.<p>This is a common trick utilized in poker, where good players will apply a certain playing style, while placing smaller bets, let their opponent adjust to your style and then suddenly change to a more aggressive style. You can take advantage of the fact that your opponent is trying to capitalize on your previous strategy. He has now introduced a sub-optimal element into his game, which you in turn can capitalize on.<p>As in the previous example, imagine we wager $1 on rock paper scissors. I pick paper for the first 100 rounds, you always pick scissors and you always win. Now we suddenly change the bet to one million dollars a hand. I change my selection to "Rock", while you play scissors, as that has given you a perfect win rate so far, and I win the money.
Interesting how the pattern "rock-paper-scissors" is followed. If this is because of the name, Swedish people, for example, would follow another patterns as they call the game "rock-scissors-paper" (Sten-sax-påse).
Is it actually a 1/3 chance of winning though? Is that including a draw as a win?<p>I've tried coding it up here:<p><a href="https://gist.github.com/andyhmltn/5c8c5734fe894db5aa02" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/andyhmltn/5c8c5734fe894db5aa02</a><p>Baring in mind it was a rushed 5 minute bodge-job so it could be wrong but there seems to be a massive skew towards draws<p>After more tests with this code it seems there's an 11% chance of winning if it's random. Baring in mind javascripts RNG
You just have to be fast enough: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVNnoOcohaU" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVNnoOcohaU</a>
I hope to see some replication of this.
It sounds like they just looked through the numbers for patterns, instead of making a prediction beforehand and then trying to falsify it.
That's fine but there needs to be replication for that kind of conclusions.
TLDR: Players are more likely to pick the move that just won.<p>To exploit that, the best strategy would probably be to always pick the move that wasn't played. Should give you an edge until your opponent notices your pattern :)
This article reminded me of a Rock-Paper-Scissors AI from a while back (requires Flash I think). <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/rock-paper-scissors.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/rock-paper-scisso...</a><p>It uses data gathered from other players. I remember playing it at the time and it was creepy how good it was at beating me. Oddly it didn't do so well this time. Maybe because I've just read that article.
If winners tend to stick with their last winning move, then shifting forward after losing is the correct strategy. Only the winners are playing irrationally here.
There is a 'variant' in Japan where every players start with rock, and the game starts after this first move. It's a small variation (I think it was originally aimed to synchronize more easily), but it nills the effect described in the Article for each session.
>> What are your odds of winning rock-paper-scissors? Simple - one in three. At least, that's what chance predicts.<p>I thought the chance of winning with no prior is 1/2... Otherwise, okay, you win with 1/3, your opponent wins with 1/3, and where is the other 1/3? :) I know what the article means, but they phrase is wrongly.