1. Throwing for The Gold.
- Author
-
Abrams, Michael
- Subjects
HAND games ,GAMES ,AMUSEMENTS - Abstract
The article discusses the annual Rock, Paper, Scissors International World Championships. The rules are simple: Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper, Paper beats Rock. Paper must be thrown horizontally, Scissors vertically. Led by brothers Douglas and Graham Walker, the World RPS Society began holding international tournaments in Toronto in 2002, but this was the biggest one yet, with more than 600 players packed into Toronto's Kool Haus. Is strategizing about RPS the equivalent of doing dead lifts to improve your tiddlywinks game? Or does the best man, rather than just the luckiest man, have significantly better odds of winning? "The mainstream view is that people ought to play the Nash Equilibrium," says J. Doyne Farmer, McKinsey Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Named after the protagonist of A Beautiful Mind, the Nash Equilibrium is the best possible strategy for any game where both players are completely rational.
- Published
- 2005