How to beat anyone at Rock-Paper-Scissors
According Zhilijan’s experiment, winning players tend to use their winning strategy again, while losers tend to change to the next strategy in the sequence of rock-paper scissors, “persistent cyclic flows.” Player A and Player B will use random strategies to start the game. [Player A – Rock & Player B – Paper] – Player A will lose in the game then he can expect that Player B will use same strategy (Paper) again, so Player A will use scissors to win the game. After that, Player A expect that Player B will use the different strategy (scissors), then Player will use rock to win the game again.
There can be only one of three outcomes, so a player uses rock 1/3, paper 1/3, and scissors 1/3 of the time, is called Nash Equilibrium. Players will choose the one of three outcomes with equal probability. However, Zhijian found Nash equilibrium is not optimal strategy. He recruited 72 students to play the game, and he found the different pattern that winners repeat their strategy and losers move to the next strategy in the sequence, “conditional response” in game theory. According to Zhijian’s experiment, many people may win a lot of more games by using the conditional response strategy.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-beat-anyone-at-rock-paper-scissors-2014-5