Rock, Paper, Scissors: Different Levels, Different Strategies [Psychology Tips]

In an earlier article, we introduced a mind-reading trick. Its principle was to exploit certain mental set patterns—when people find themselves in a particular situation, they are highly likely to make one particular choice. Once a magician understands these patterns, they can predict the audience’s reactions with surprising accuracy.

A slightly more advanced kind of mind reading has to take more variables into account. For example, mind reading varies from person to person: different people in the same situation may make different choices. So figuring out what kind of person you’re dealing with—or, in competitive games, what level your opponent is at—becomes crucial.

For this principle, we can once again turn to William Poundstone’s book Rock Breaks Scissors, using the game in its title to illustrate it.

Don’t underestimate rock, paper, scissors. The game even has a world championship. At an event of that level, a master can have a crushing advantage over a beginner.

What makes a rock-paper-scissors master so good? One thing they’re especially good at is judging what level their opponent is at. The strategy for choosing your throw is completely different against a master and against a beginner.

If the other person is a beginner, that’s easy enough: just follow the usual patterns. Beginners’ rock-paper-scissors habits are basically fixed, so they’re easy to guess.

For example, a clenched fist—rock—is the most aggressive throw, and people feel the same way about it across cultures. Men also tend to be more aggressive, so if you’re facing an inexperienced male beginner, your best first throw is paper, because it beats rock.

What about women? We don’t know. These data were summarized from historical records of people who took part in rock-paper-scissors tournaments, and the participants in those competitions were mostly men. There simply isn’t enough data on women.

Besides loving rock right out of the gate, beginners have plenty of other patterns that are easy to exploit.

For example, beginners unconsciously adjust their next throw based on whether they lost or won the previous round. If a beginner opens with rock and you play paper, they lose the first round and are quite likely to change their throw next. So in the next round, you should play scissors. Scissors puts you in an unbeatable position: if they play paper, scissors wins; if they play scissors, it’s a tie.

Some beginners, after losing, like to copy the throw that just beat them. If paper just beat their rock, they are quite likely to play paper next, making scissors an even more likely winner for you.

In short, after a few rounds against a beginner, a seasoned rock-paper-scissors player can usually figure out which patterns their opponent favors, then beat them by choosing the counter to those patterns.

But if the opponent is also a master, everything changes. A duel between two rock-paper-scissors masters is a lot like the scene in Death Note where Light Yagami and L meet formally for the first time. Both Light and L know that the other person is at the same level as they are, with an equally exceptional IQ.

So in every exchange of that conversation, they consider: given the other person’s level of intelligence, how will they interpret what I say next? And my response has to take their reasoning ability into account.

It’s the same when rock-paper-scissors masters face off. They assess how deeply their opponent understands throwing patterns: if I attack using a pattern, but my opponent knows that pattern too, it no longer works. Can I deliberately use the opposite pattern to counter it? And if my opponent has thought of that layer too, do I then have to factor in the fact that they have thought of that layer?

That creates a game of recursive reasoning. Many rock-paper-scissors masters are very good at adjusting their strategy according to their opponent’s reactions, keeping themselves in an unbeatable position.

p.s.:

Of course, if a master realizes that no matter what they do, their strategic level still can’t beat the opponent’s, they can switch into a defensive posture and make their throws completely random. I explained how to throw completely at random in an earlier episode, Psychological Black Magic: The Brain Shutdown Technique | Psychology Punk No.016, so I won’t repeat it here.

Notes

• This article in the Psychology New Knowledge Mini-Lesson series was written at the time as a popular-science/essay-style short piece related to Zhichao Wei: Psychology New Knowledge Course. It was published on the now-closed platform Fanfan, and the original link no longer exists.