Fedule posted:

Fedule posted:

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I haven't been watching the threads; how many votes for dynamite have there been?

oldskool posted:

Wouldn't be the first time the left blew a presumed insurmountable advantage.

Cathode Raymond posted:

I see from the Right thread that Crow jumped right back onto their team once their fortune changed.

Sjs00 posted:

ive haing n anyrusem

CirclMastr posted:

Time for me to analyze again. Hopefully this won't be too results-oriented, but my goal here is to try to decipher the decision-making process behind their moves. So, let's look at their behavior, and discuss what's exploitative, what's counter-exploitative, and what's GTO:

Round 1: We throw rock, the expected/most likely opening. They exploit with paper, and win.
Round 2: If we had stuck with expectations, we would have moved to the throw that would have won round 1, scissors. They threw rock to exploit, but we tied.

Where does that leave them? There's no solid exploitative play to follow a tie. Arguably, they could have reverted back to a round 1 strategy. Equally arguably, they could have expected a repeat throw. Either way:
Round 3: They expect us to throw rock. They throw paper to exploit, but we tie.

What could they learn from this? That either expectations were wrong (after a tie, we cycle to the next throw), or we are adopting exploitative throws (expecting them to throw rock with the same reasoning they used to expect us to throw rock). If the former were true, they would expect us to throw scissors next (cycling to the next throw). If the latter, they would expect us to throw paper to exploit rock (if they think we put them on reverting to rock after a tie) or scissors to exploit paper (if they think we think they repeat). But game history shows they don't revert to rock on a tie, so they rule that out. The upshot:
Round 4: They expect us to exploit and throw scissors. They throw rock to counter-exploit, but we tie.

Now they may be confused. We aren't playing exploitatively. Either we went to the bog standard rock opening again, or we're counter-exploiting and they have to go one level deeper. But! Game history shows that after we tied with rock before, we went paper. Do they go by theory, or history? If they think we're exploiting, they would expect scissors to exploit history's paper. If they think we're historical, they would expect paper as before. They decide:
Round 5: They expect us to exploit and throw scissors. They throw rock, and win.

Now they have us. They've put us on exploitative play. They know we won't throw paper, the throw that would have won us the previous round, because we've moved off expected plays from round 2. Their own history from round 1 to 2 shows that they don't adhere to "winner stays" and they know we know that, so they can't reliably counter-exploit. But with paper ruled out:
Round 6: They throw rock, knowing they can do no worse than tie. They win.

At this point they actually HAVE adhered to the "winner stays" expectation. But the considerations for round 7 are almost the same as round 6. We've shown we won't make expected plays anymore. And even if we surprise them, they're up 3-0 and can take a loss. But by now they have thrown 3 rocks in a row, and they might be thinking that we don't expect a fourth. It's less certain but odds are very low that we throw paper.
Round 7: They throw rock, almost knowing they can do no worse than tie. They tie.

So round 8 comes around, they're trying to lock up the sweep, and it's the first tie in a while. So they look at what happened before. Go back to round 4, where we tied with rock. What did we do then? We threw scissors and lost to their rock. Both teams have demonstrated they won't stick to one style of play. But we've tied with rock three times now: first we cycled to paper and tied again, second we cycled to scissors and lost. We haven't had any success, only tying. Do they expect us to stick to rock this time? If anything, they ought to rule out scissors (since we lost with it) and therefore throw paper, knowing they can at worst tie against paper and at best win against rock. But they don't. They throw rock for a fifth time. Why? The only justification I can see is if they felt that by throwing rock four times in a row, it would stop us from throwing paper, since we would never expect a fifth rock in a row. That would leave rock and scissors for us to throw, and their safe throw becomes:
Round 8: They throw rock, possibly because they ruled out paper and made rock no worse than a tie. We throw rock and tie.

So we have another rock-rock tie. We've followed rock-rock ties up first with paper, then scissors, now rock. We've cycled around, and they may put us on paper for the next throw. Additionally, we have not thrown the same move three times in a row to this point. History rules out rock, expected play is paper, either way:
Round 9: They throw scissors, either to exploit an expected paper or because they rule out rock. We throw rock, and win.

There may be some more confusion at this point. But this is new territory, our first win. They don't know how we'll respond, but we haven't been on strictly expected play in a while. If we were on expected play, we would throw rock next because winner stays. If we were on exploitative play, we would throw scissors next against an expected play of paper. But neither team is playing to expectations, and both teams know it. If they can't throw paper (against the expected play of rock), and they can't counter-exploit with rock (because it requires them to think we would assume they throw the expected move), that leaves scissors. It also defies the "loser moves" expectation, as a bonus. Or maybe that's the main reason and I'm too deep into yomi in my analysis.
Round 10: They throw scissors, in order to be unexpected on some level. We throw rock, and win.

It's now 3-2, things aren't looking too good for them. Not only did we throw rock four times in a row, but we succeeded with a "winner stays" play, just like they did. Our style is clearly changing again. Maybe they think we're just aping the five-rocks pattern, maybe they think we're going to stick with "winner stays" and play standard, expected moves. But either way, it's back to basics for them. Either they were too deep into yomi or not deep enough last round; either way, it's time to exploit.
Round 11: They throw paper to exploit an expected rock. We throw scissors and win.

Where does that leave us now? We just demonstrated exploitative play, immediately after expected play. They may think we set them up for it. They may think we're completely in their heads.
So let's look at the possibilities from their point of view:
1. We play standard, "winner stays," and throw scissors again.
2. We expect them to throw rock (would have won last round) and exploit with paper.

If they think we are on either of these plans, they would throw scissors. It ties against expected play, and wins against exploitative play. If this analysis is correct, we should throw Rock.

Covski posted:

A drat fine piece of effortposting from Team Right, possibly the largest amount of words ever written about RPS: