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What Is The Best

Strategy For Winning
In Rock-Paper-Scissors
Game

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Contents:
Title…………………………………………………………………...I
Contents……………………………………………………………..II
1)Introduction……………………………………………………….1
2)The Main Strategy………………………………………………..2
3)First Round………………………………………………………..2
3.1)If we play Rock in the first round………………………………….3
3.2) If we play Paper in the first round………………………………...3
3.3)If we play Scissors in the first round……………………………….4
3.4) General strategy about First Round………………………………5
4) After the first round……………………………………………...5
4.1) After Tie Combination …………………………………………..5
4.2)After Win Combination…………………………………………..6
4.3)After Loss Combination………………………………………….6
4.3.1) Losing with Rock………………………………………...7
4.3.2) Losing with Paper…………………………………….….8
4.3.3) Losing with Scissors……………………………………...8
5)Conclusion………………………………………………………..9

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1) Introduction

Rock Paper Scissors is a very classic and simple strategy game to play. The rules
are simple. There are 2 players and there are 3 possible moves to play. And you’re trying to
play the move which gives you the score. If you play rock, you beat scissors. If you play
paper, you beat rock. And if you play scissors, you beat paper. And if the both players played
the same move, there would be a tie.
But believe or not, winning in this game is not easy as the rules. Because in theory,
your winning chance is only %33,3 percent. Let me show you.

(distribution no1) (distribution no2)

If you pay attention to the distribution 1, you can see all the possible actions in a
turn. For a specific move, there are 3 possible scenarios: you can win/tie/lose. Since we
know there are 3 specific moves at the beginning, there are 9 total combinations. %33,3 rate
for each scenario. That seems fine. Or is it?
If you look at the next distribution, you will see the winning rate. According to the
graph, the winning rate is still %33,3. But what about the “not-winning” rate. If we look at all
situations except the win situations, we’ll find out that for %66,6 percent of chance, we
cannot win.
So, how can we improve our chance to win? Well, that’s an easy question. We
should play the move which has the most winning chance. But aren't all the chances equal
for each move? As I said at the beginning, in theory it is.
For example, imagine a wheel of fortune. When we spin it, the chances are the
same and %33,3 for each move right?

(distribution no 3)

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Or another example: artificial intelligent technology. If you code a program about rock
paper scissors and ask a random move from it, the chances also will be equal and %33,3.
But can we really say the same thing for human-beings? Of course we can not.
Because every person has a different way of thinking, analyzing, understanding and making
decisions. That means, every person has a different favorite move, different strategy and
different plans. So, I made a questionnaire to 400 different people to collect data to get a
general idea of their way of thinking.
There were 4 questions in the questionnaire:
1) What do you play in the first round?(their favorite move)
2) In a Tie situation, would you change your last move?
3) In a Lost situation, would you change your last move?
4) In a Win situation, would you change your last move?
And I got some interesting information from it. Let’s talk about the main strategy and then
analyze the samples.

2) The Main Strategy

Let’s consider a 3-points wins game. If you get 3 wins, the game overs and you win.
In theory, two players can play infinite times. Because there is a possibility that all sets are
played as a tie combination. But in reality, the situation is a bit different. Humans are the
creatures who are able to think and do strategies. In rock-paper-scissors, your opponent will
always try to read your next move to win. And if (s)he does, the game is over for you.
So, you can not lose any time. You have to win as soon as possible. And for that,
every combination but win is our enemy. Either lost and tie positions are a time (and point)
waste.
Since that is the situation, the main strategy is improving the win/total rate as high as
possible. Sounds simple right?
To do that, we have to read our opponent’s moves. Of course there are several
details about reading your opponent but the main issue is the chances of the moves. For
example what is the chance for player 2 to play rock in the first round? We will analyze the
samples and then look at the strategy.

3)First Round
According to the statistics, in the first round:
%38 of the players are playing Rock
%25.7 of the players are playing Paper
%36.3 of the players are playing Scissors

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(distribution no4)
So what does that mean and how should we make our decisions and plans according
to this statistics?
These numbers are the odds of the preferring. For example at the first round, the
chance of your opponent to play paper is rarer than rock. If you got that, let’s move out to the
strategy.

3.1)If we play Rock in the first round

Rock beats scissors, loses to Paper and ties with Rock. So if we play Rock in the first
round, the statistics will be:

(distribution no 5)

● The winning rate is %36.3

● The tie rate is %38
● The lost rate is %25,7
For rock, winning rate is increasing %3 more compared with the theoretical chance of
%33,3

3.2) If we play Paper in the first round

Paper beats rock, loses to scissors and ties with paper.So if we play Paper in the first
round, the statistics will be:

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(distribution no 6)
● The winning rate is %38
● The tie rate is %25,7
● The lost rate is %36,3
For Paper, winning rate is increasing %4,7 more compared with the theoretical
chance of %33,3
3.3)If we play Scissors in the first round
Scissors beats paper, loses to rock and ties with scissors.So if we play Scissors in
the first round, the statistics will be:

(distribution no 7)
● The winning rate is %25,7
● The tie rate is %36,3
● The lost rate is %38
For Paper, winning rate is decreasing %7,6 more compared with the theoretical
chance of %33,3

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3.4) General strategy about First Round
As you can see in the previous chapters, Scissors has the lowest chance to win
against a standard player. In a normal and isolated first round, playing scissors would be the
worst choice to play.
Rock comes with a better rate. Playing rock is still acceptable. Actually if you don’t
mind getting a tie position, rock is a better choice than paper since the win/loss rate is higher
in rock than paper. But for us, tie position is not something we really want so I don’t
recommend rock than paper.
Of course paper is the best move to play according to the statistics. If you play paper,
you actually maximize your chance of winning in the most possible way. So in a standard
first round, the best strategy is playing paper.

4) After the first round

The first moves were played and players got win tied or lost. But at the end of the
round, both players got a hint about their opponent. Player 2 had already started to make a
strategy about you. We will do that too, of course. We will look for all combinations and their
own variations. Our combinations are:
● Tie
● Loss
● Win
4.1) After Tie Combination
Let’s think that we(as player 1) played a random move and got tied with player 2. The
tactic we have to do is reading the player 2’s next move. According to the statistics:

(distribution no 8)

● %52,8 of the players are playing the same move (s)he did last turn
● %47,3 of the players are changing their move
In a possible after-tie combination, more than half of the players are playing the same
move. That’s why we should play the move which beats the last move that has been played.
For example: If we got an after-tie position with paper, %52,8 of the players would

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play paper again. So if you play scissors next round, you have a massive %52,8 chance of
winning.
But so many after-tie positions happen, your opponent might understand this
strategy. So after a time you might want to play the same move. For example after a paper
tie, your opponent might play rock in order to beat you since player 2 might think that you are
going to play scissors. And if you play paper again, you can gain a point by it.

4.2) After Win combination

Just imagine that you win at the first turn. That means, Player 2 did lose. According
to the statistics:

(distribution 9)

● %47,5 of the players are playing the same move (s)he did last turn
● %52,5 of the players are changing their move
At the first sight, you might be thinking that we should focus on the changed ones
since it’s rate is higher. But you're wrong. Even though it is, the last move still has a higher
possibility than the other 2 moves. Because the other two possible moves will share the
%52,5 rate among them. Let me show you with an example.
In order to get the highest move rate in a changed scenario, we want to give as much
as we can to a specific move. So let’s say that Player 2 played scissors and lost. So the new
move will be rock or paper(most favorite and least favorite). Let’s do simple math.
0.38/(0.38+0.257)*0.525*100=%31,3187
So Player 2 could play Rock by %31,3187 of chance but play Scissors by %47,5 of
chance. That’s why if we play the last move we played again, our chance of winning will
always be %47,5 (nearly a half, not bad).

4.3)After Loss combination

We lost and player 2 won the set. So what should we do?
The After Lost game is a more complex one. Because there is not a basic strategy so we
have to look at all 3 scenarios each by each. But before that let’s look at the general
statistics of player 2 who did wins:

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(distrubition no 10)

According to the statistics:

● %27,2 of the players are playing the same move (s)he did last turn
● %72,8 of the players are changing their move
This time, the rate of change is far higher than non-chance situations. So we have to
look for all three moves and decide a strategy after that if we can.

4.3.1) Losing with Rock

That means Player 2 played paper and won. In a situation like this:
● %27,2 of the players will play paper again
● %72,8 of the players will play rock or scissors
To calculate the specific rates of rock and scissors, let's do the math.
● 38/(38+36,3)*72,8=%37,2328 is the rate for rock
● 36,3/(38+36,3)*72,8=%35,5672 is the rate for scissors

(distribution no 11)

In a situation like that, if you play:

● Rock:your winning rate would be %35,5672
● Paper:your winning rate would be%37,2328
● Scissors:your winning rate would be%27,2

-) If you lose with rock, play paper for the next turn.

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4.3.2) Losing with Paper
That means Player 2 played scissors and won. In a situation like this:
● %27,2 of the players will play scissors again
● %72,8 of the players will play rock or paper
To calculate the specific rates of rock and paper, let's do the math.
● 25,7/(38+25,7)*72,8=%30.8714 is the rate for paper
● 38/(38+25,7)*72,8=%43,4286 is the rate for rock

(distribution no 12)

In a situation like that, if you play:

● Rock:your winning rate would be %27,2
● Paper:your winning rate would be %43,4286
● Scissors:your winning rate would be%30,8714

-)If you lose with paper, play paper again for the next turn.

4.3.3)Losing with Scissors

That means Player 2 played rock and won. In a situation like this:
● %27,2 of the players will play rock again
● %72,8 of the players will play scissors or paper
To calculate the specific rates of rock and paper, let's do the math.
● 25,7/(36,3+25,7)*72,8=%30,1768 is the rate for paper
● 36,3/(36,3+25,7)*72,8=%42,6232 is the rate for scissors

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(distribution no 13)

In a situation like that, if you play:

● Rock:your winning rate would be %42,6232
● Paper:your winning rate would be %27,2
● Scissors:your winning rate would be%30,1768

-)If you lose with scissors, play rock for the next turn.

5)Conclusion
We analyzed all possible combinations for every position just from the beginning. In
every combination, we figured out the best strategy for winning in a standard game. And the
final result is
● In the 1st round, the best move is paper.
● After-tie, the best move is the one that counter your previous move
● After-win, the best move is your last move
● After-loss
○ if you lost with rock, the best move is Paper
○ if you lost with paper, the best move is still Paper
○ if you lost with scissors, the best move is Rock

If your opponents know these statistics, maybe you should do the reverse of these.
But except for that, these strategies are the best choices you can mathematically do.

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