On a Lighter Note...Toronto Man Becomes 2002 International Rock Paper Scissors Champion

World RPS Society ^ | 11/16/2002 | worldrps.com

[Happygal]

I'll be in Calgary next Saturday, flying home via-Edmondton-Calgary-Heathrow-Dublin.

As nice and all as it was to visit friends in Canada.
IRELAND, is a far better destination in Winter.
At least we have things to do, and you don't have to drive three hours over ice to do 'em.

:-)

P.S. God Bless Canada and all who sail in her :-)

[supercat]

The game is interesting from a game-theoretical standpoint because there's no optimal solution in the game theory sense. (It's been way too long since I took linear programming, but I vaguely recall the term "saddle point" used with reference to rock paper scissors.)

A more interesting variation of the same concept: take three dice, one each of red, green, and blue, each marked with two copies of each of three different numbers:

The The The

red green blue

die is marked with 1, 6, and 8. die is marked with 2, 4, and 9. die is marked with 3, 5, and 7.

One person (the mark) selects a die, then the other person (the sheister) selects a different die, then the two players roll. Higher number wins. Note that ties are impossible, since no number appears on more than one die.

Any idea why I called one person the mark and the other the sheister?

[PistolPaknMama]

Geez, maybe he can run as Albore's VP in 2004. BTW, didn't al gore invent rock paper scissors?

[dead]

What's George Clooney got?

I don't need good looks and mountains of money.

I can type snide comments on the internet. That's what the ladies go for. 8-)

[Bob]

Any idea why I called one person the mark and the other the sheister?

Regardless of which of the die that the mark chooses, the sheister can pick either of the other two. That gives him a 5:4 win to loss advantage every time.

If the mark picks the red die, the sheister picks the green one.
If the mark picks the green die, the sheister picks the blue one.
If the mark picks the blue die, the sheister picks the red one.

Pretty clever. (And no, it's not going to be at all obvious to the mark. I had to work through all of the permutations to realize it.)

[Happygal]

Dead...you knock 'em.. (should I re-arrange that sentence, or should it be a statement? *L*)

[MadIvan]

Well, I'm in Alberta, just an hour from Jasper...do you think that counts? Still going DULL!!!! I never KNEW Ireland had so much to offer in wintertime, until I got here. Seriously. Canada is beautiful in summer. Just don't bother coming here in winter. There is NOTHING to do.

Except use the internet, obviously, darling. ;)

Love, Ivan

[Happygal]

Obviously ;-)

[Xenalyte]

Sweet - the Badger makes my day!

[Erasmus]

Around 1980 I wrote a Pascal R-S-P program that you play against. The idea behind the program was to look for patterns in your play, predict your next move, and beat it.

The program, of course, kept score. This was a simple command-line system (pre-graphics on a PDP Unix system) and you could play better than a game a second.

After a few hundred games, the program pretty much got your number and started pulling slowly and inexorably ahead of you.

Unfortunately, that was about twenty computers ago and I fear the source is long lost.

BTW, it's Rock, Scissors, Paper, not Rock, Paper, Scissors. <)B^)

[Neologic]

My favourite version of this game is Karate man, the Gorilla and the Gunfighter.
You stand back to back and on the count of three jump and turn in the guise of one of the three.
For those without imagination: Karate man looks like some Bruce Lee pose, Gorilla looks like a gorilla with its arms up in the air and the gunfighter is pointing a 'gun' at you.

Karate man kicks the gun out of the Gunfighter's hand, the Gorilla beats up Karate man, and the Gunfighter shoots the Gorilla.