How to win at rock paper scissors - BBC

I found this article useful and informative. A group in China held a massive rock-paper-scissors tournament in order to analyze human behavior in the game in order to look for any kinds of conditioning. They found that although players picked each choice the expected 1/3 of the time, there was a pattern to their choices.

When players won a round, they tended to repeat their winning rock, paper or scissors more often than would be expected at random (one in three).

Hidden psychology
Losers, on the other hand, tended to switch to a different action. And they did so in order of the name of the game: "rock-paper-scissors".

After losing with a rock, for example, a player was more likely to play paper in the next round than the "one in three" rule would predict.

This "win-stay lose-shift" strategy is known in game theory as a conditional response - and it may be hard-wired into the human brain, the researchers say.

I know that I have made the same plays in my own previous R.P.C. games, which of course, is how I spend my leisure hours.

Since this behavior is hard-wired into the human brain (it could have to do with being forced to pick your next move on the fly, forcing a reactive response instead of an explicit choice) it might actually be hard not to follow this strategy for the experienced player.

I would suspect that since the traditional game involves hand-movements, the results might differ if one were to play a digital version of competitive rock-paper-scissors.

a reply to: darkbake

I have to say, that I never played Rock Paper Scissors that way. I always found it expedient to use paper first, because most people against whom I was playing would favour rock as an opening gambit, then swap to scissors, since many players would try paper next, assuming that I would swap to rock.

I NEVER played the possible moves in the order in which they appear in the title of the game. Doing so makes for highly unsatisfactory win/loss ratios.

Were they playing another human or a computer? To keep the appearance of random, people often keep track of prior answers and avoid patterns. If I were playing a computer that was not trying to guess my strategy, and I were bored, I might also play cyclically rock, paper, scissors as this take less energy than to try to actively keep my guesses as random as I could.

Oh yeah! I'm gonna slam my five year old after school today. High stakes RPS. Oh man, I'm probably never going to vaccuum again.
Thanks for the info OP.

So...what about lizard and Spock?