Chinese researchers have released the secret strategy to winning any game of Rock-Paper-Scissors! After a lengthy study of 300 games with 350 students, scientists have found out that most people develop the same pattern when playing this game of “chance.” Most winners stick with their winning draw the next game, and most losers rotate in a clockwise fashion following a R-P-S sequence. That may sound a little more complicated than it actually is, so let me break it down.
John and Suzy are trying to decide whether to eat tacos or cereal, and decide to play a best-of-three series of Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide. In the first hand, John beats Suzy’s scissors with rock. Knowing that information and the study released, we can predict with a good probability that John will throw another rock in the next hand only to be bested by Suzy, who rotated her losing hand to paper. This is why it seems more often than not that best-of-threes come down to the final win. So why did a bunch of Chinese researchers watch that many Rock-Paper-Scissors games? Did they want to make sure they won a bet or something?
ABC News says the results throw the notion out the door that Rock-Paper-Scissors was a game that existed based on classical game theory. So although you think there is an equal probability of your opponent using one of three methods as you count down to that final hand slap, it’s actually skewed based off the previous game. Researchers say that knowing this strategy will show a much higher win rate against those who believe that rock, paper, or scissors all have an equal chance of appearing. So, now you know how to beat someone at R-P-S, but actually, the conclusion reached goes much farther than that, researchers say.
Is there a pattern in the way the human brain addresses a challenge, or are we making our decisions out of impulse? The fact that we thought a simple game was a matter of chance but is really a repeating pattern leads researchers to question what else humans might collectively do in a pattern. It may also, in my own opinion, show that when you do something three hundred times, you’re bound to create a pattern in the way you achieve the task. That being said, I saw the strategy in action and it worked against someone who didn’t know, so hurry and try it before word spreads too far!
