Think you’re a Scissors, Rock, Paper gun? Take on the supercomputer

The New York Times has created the world’s fastest scissors, rock, paper player. A computer that draws on the memory of 200,000 games and analyses your most likely move based on patterns. I took a stab, and 200+ games later I declared the computer the winner. I reckon it’s slightly harder than the games in the Alex (the) Kidd games. I thought the “the” was their – but not according to Dr. Google.

“Computers mimic human reasoning by building on simple rules and statistical averages. Test your strategy against the computer in this rock-paper-scissors game illustrating basic artificial intelligence. Choose from two different modes: novice, where the computer learns to play from scratch, and veteran, where the computer pits over 200,000 rounds of previous experience against you.”

I tried thinking really hard about the best possible move and picking the opposite. I tried picking the same move ten times in a row and then changing it (I won that one, but lost the nine before that).

What are your strategies? With real people I like to call my moves in advance just to get people doublethinking. Then, if they think I’m trustworthy, they win the game, but I win the game of life. And if they don’t – I win both. It’s win/win.

I wonder if asking people what they call the game (ie the order they frame the three options in) is indicative of a person’s stock throw? Maybe it’s the one they put in the middle. I’m definitely a rock guy. Mainly because in my family a win came with the opportunity to physically demonstrate the action of the winning item. And a rock is more fun to dish out than scissors.