Chinese Scientists Discover Winning Rock-Paper-Scissors Strategy

"Which hotpot place should we go to?" "Let's play rock-paper-scissors to decide," you'll now say, knowing that Haidilao is in your sights.

Scientists from Zhejiang University appear to have discovered a winning strategy for the age-old hand game, which of course, China claims it invented in the Han Dynasty (shortly after inventing paper). Apparently it then took 23 centuries and 360 students playing 300 rounds of the game to come up with an iron-clad winning strategy, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Quote:

Results showed that players who won the first round of the game tended to stick with the same action while those who lost would switch actions in a 'clockwise direction' where rock changes to paper, paper to scissors, scissors to rock.

Therefore, if you win the first round, theoretically you should change your next choice to the action that would beat your opponent's expected next move.

In other words, if you put out scissors and your opponent had chosen paper, your opponent is more than likely to choose scissors next, so you should choose rock.

We foresee a lot of lunchtime rock-paper-scissors face-offs at lunch today as people try to prove this to themselves. Or just look at the helpful diagram above.

Photo: Huffington Post