You think that Rock Paper Scissors game is a simple game of chance? Disabuse you! There are real techniques and even world championships !

In a typical RPS game, participants reveal a three-alternative choice at the same time: Rock, Paper or Scissors. The winner (and loser) is calculated by the rule Rock wins over Scissors (the Scissors are ‘blunted’), Paper wins over Rock (the Rock is ‘covered’) and Scissors wins over Paper (the Paper is ‘cut’). The specific relationships between elements dictate a crucial aspect of the game space, in that there is no singular strategy that guarantees success.

One of the techniques often quoted would be to be the least predictable possible to prevent your opponent from guessing your next blow (and thus to counter it).

The problem comes from the human brain who is absolutely not designed for random sequence. We are unconsciously influenced by certain parameters (our last blow, the opponent’s blow, the result of the last round). Our choices can’t be really random and would even seem to correspond to a certain plan.

Indeed, an experience was realized by means of 300 students playing each other. Once the results analyzed, the scientists managed to put forward certain recurring behavior.

In the first place, we tend to prefer to play the stone ( go to know why ? it would be moreover a rather male tendency ). The veterans like making fun of it by saying : “Rock is for Rookies” .

Secondly, the players who win a round tend to replay the same blow and those who lose change most of the time its blow with the lower level one (the one that you wanted to beat, if you played stone you will want to play scissors). In case of equality, the players will rather be tempted to choose the symbol upper to that played previously (the stone after the paper for example).

We are subjected inevitably to behavioral or cognitive influences who empèche us to realize random sequences and we rather have to base ourselves on the knocks of the opponent. It means playing “in a psychological way, by trying to anticipate the choices of our opponent if we believed to perceive a certain logic in its game.