

How Do I Win Rock Paper Scissors Every Time - tomerico
http://www.chacha.com/content/infographics/How-do-i-win-rock-paper-scissors-every-time#

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kqr2
There was a RPS programming competition which tested various algorithms
against each other:

<http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/rsbpc.html>

My favorite was Iocaine Powder. The strategy is explained in more detail here:

<http://www.ofb.net/~egnor/iocaine.html>

Iocaine is also a reference to a well known scene in _The Princess Bride_

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/quotes?qt0482733>

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joshu
That was a fun competition. A good friend won it the first year.

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hristov
Number 4 makes absolutely no sense. Even if the authors presumption is correct
(i.e., that the opponent will not throw a rock), countering with a rock still
gives you only a 50% chance of winning and 50% chance of loss. If the
presumption were correct, it would be better to counter with scissors. Then
you get 50% chance of winning and 50%chance of tie.

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radu_floricica
Is there a tie?

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DeusExMachina
It helps to be a good mentalist too:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOwzGBRTiEg>

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Monkeyget
Interesting. The two first players all followed the same linear move order:
player 1 : scissor -> rock -> paper -> scissor -> rock player 2 : paper ->
scissor -> rock -> paper -> scissor player 3 : scissor

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cjlars
You'll notice he keeps suggesting his opponent's throws. He demonstrates the
game to the first player with scissors, who then throws scissors. Then he
demonstrates how "rock smashes scissors", so his opponent thinks "Rock!" and
throws it. Later in the video, he flashes scissors for no apparent reason
before a throw, with success.

Watch the video, he 'seeds' his opponents throughout.

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rivo
I remember reading an article a while back about some World Championship of
Rock Paper Scissors. The winner back then said that most players with a
"strategy" eventually failed. The only thing he did was think of a random
sequence before playing and then stick to it.

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kqr2
Also, for those who feel that standard RPS-3 is not challenging, there is
always RPS-101 (of which RPS-3 is a mere subset)

<http://www.umop.com/rps101.htm>

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ryanf
#3 has been my strategy since childhood, and it works surprisingly well
against people who don't know the trick.

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Devilboy
There's an annual RPS tournament in Las Vegas with a $500 buy-in. Andy Bloch
from MIT blackjack team and high stakes poker fame is one proud RPS champion.
Pretty serious business!

