Rock Breaks Scissors: A Practical Guide to Outguessing and Outwitting Almost Everybody

by William Poundstone

A practical guide to outguessing everything, from multiple-choice tests to the office football pool to the stock market.

People are predictable even when they try not to be. William Poundstone demonstrates how to turn this fact to personal advantage in scores of everyday situations, from playing the lottery to buying a home. Rock Breaks Scissors is mind-reading for real life.

Will the next tennis serve go right or left? Will the market go up or down? Most people are poor at that kind of predicting. We are hard-wired to make bum bets on "trends" and "winning streaks" that are illusions. Yet ultimately we're all in the business of anticipating the actions of others. Poundstone reveals how to overcome the errors and improve the accuracy of your own outguessing. Rock Breaks Scissors is a hands-on guide to turning life's odds in your favor.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Science, Economics, Mathematics, Audiobook, Business

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

William Poundstone is the author of more than ten non-fiction books, including 'Fortune's Formula', which was the Amazon Editors' Pick for #1 non-fiction book of 2005. Poundstone has written for The New York Times, Psychology Today, Esquire, Harpers, The Economist, and Harvard Business Review. He has appeared on the Today Show, The David Letterman Show and hundreds of radio talk-shows throughout the world. Poundstone studied physics at MIT and many of his ideas concern the social and financial impact of scientific ideas. His books have sold over half a million copies worldwide.

Reviews

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Q:
Recap: How to Outguess Multiple-Choice Tests
• On true-false tests, “true” answers are more common.
• On multiple-choice tests with four answers, the second one (B) is most often correct.
• “None of the above” and “all of the above” answers are disproportionately likely to be correct.
• The answer that was right on the previous question (“true” or [D], say) is less likely to be right on the present question.
• A strategy for standardized tests like the SAT is to eliminate the outlier. Avoid guessing an answer that is too different from the others.
(c)
Q:
Recap: How to Outguess Fake Numbers
• When the digits of recent data depart from the company’s customary distributions, it can be a tip-off to fraud.
• Embezzlers and fraud artists making up numbers unconsciously overuse descending pairs of digits (like 10, 21, 32, etc.)
• Fakers underuse doubled digits (like 00 or 55), thinking they don’t look “random” enough.
(c)

[Cindy (BKind2Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an ARC that I won through Goodreads First Reads.

I enjoyed this book - it appealed to me both on a practical level and a nerd level. On the practical side, there's plenty of usable information on how to play games (tennis, lottery, rock/paper/scissors) while the nerdy side loves the graphs and math explanations of why these trends and streaks work or, more likely, don't. This book is billed as a "hands-on guide to turning life's odds in your favor" and it rarely disappoints. I'm not much of a gambler but the explanation of football/basketball pools were interesting as was rock/paper/scissors (Who knew there was competitive RPS?) There are explanations of randomness - it does not look like what you expect it to and thus it can used to track people cheating on their expense accounts and taxes. I liked the explanation of the mentalist's trick - and the mnemonic used "TERASABOS" for the effect. The Terasabos effect is "This effect requires acting skills and balls of steel". The practical side of me liked the tips on when to buy large ticket items (if you find a 20% discount from average best price over the past year, buy it.) Similarly, the advice on the stock market seems very useful - sell stocks when the Shiller PE is 28 and buy when the Shiller PE is 13. Keep the funds in fixed-income (bonds, etc) when not in stocks. Interesting and informative.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rock Breaks Scissors is billed as a “practical guide to outguessing and outwitting almost everybody”. Sounds fun? It was, mostly. This book covers so much ground, from tennis to the Oscars to (you guessed it) rock paper scissors. This is both good and bad, since covering everything means you have less time for the specifics. The chapters were rather short – some were only a couple pages long.

Another downside is that it’s hard to be interested in every chapter. The Rock Paper Scissors chapter was so much fun, but the sports betting chapters were considerably less so (I’m not a gambler). Now, I read the book all the way through (because that is what I do), so you can trust me when I say that you should feel free to read what sounds interesting and ignore what doesn’t. That’s really the best way.

Be warned: There is some dense math in this book (especially in the Stock Market chapter), so if you’re not a math person, you might just want to avoid this book altogether. Full disclosure.

So I give it a 3.5, gaining points for being awesome and losing them being all over the place (in terms of topics).

PS: I got this book for free through Goodreads First Reads

[Kim Nichols · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very very interesting book. I can't wait to try out what I learned from reading it. I have already lent it to my son and my husband wants to borrow it next. It really is a good read.

[MURAT BAYRAKTAR · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kitap ilk başta önsözüyle dişe dokunur, hayata dair daha elle tutulur örneklerle başlamışken sonrasında bana göre çok fazla tekrara düşerek sonlara doğru iyice sıkıcı bir hal alıyor. 2014 yılında basılmış olması itibariyle verdiği vaka örneklerini çok daha eski yıllardan seçtiğinden daha önceden de okumuştum. Bütün kitabını bahisler, onları nasıl daha az zararla kapatmak veya kazanmak için belli matematiksel stratejiler olasılıklar oluşturmak üzerine kurmuş. Çok fazla tabloya veriye ve rakama boğuyor bizi. Dolayısıyla bana sürekli bu tekrarlar yüzünden sıkıcı geldi. Beklentimi karşılamadı maalesef.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I don't think I'll be outguessing and outwitting "almost everybody" after reading this, but it was still an interesting book. With topics ranging from rock, paper, scissors strategies to office pools to the stock market, it's a good bet every chapter will not be of equal interest to a reader. The chapter on the stock market was a struggle for me to get through, and I didn't care much about the sports-related chapters either.
But the book explored some interesting ideas about how our minds tend to work, how bad people are at randomness and how we see patterns where there aren't any.
The introductory chapters to Parts One and Two were more fascinating than many of the chapters that followed, but I still liked several of the topics that were covered. The chapters on passwords, crowd-sourced ratings, manipulated and fake numbers were good, as well as the chapters in Part Two on big data and retail prices. It was also handy that the author did a summary of tips and strategies at the end of each chapter.
There's probably something for everyone in here, and it's worth a look.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book, but more so the theory and psychology behind the choices make than the "operational" chapters that explains "how to guess". I would definitely recommend this book for the background info and the stories, such as the Outguessing Machine, but would tell people not to expect a ton from the "How to" chapters; you're not going to become rich by "Outguessing the Lottery"

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you wish for a book that will make you a master at winning everything, you'll be disappointed. If you are a fan of probability theory and psychology, you'll probably like it. There is a lot of material to be absorbed. I found many snippets of very interesting information. Overall I'm happy I picked it off the "new books" shelf.

[Ufku · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitap hiç fena sayılmaz. Sürekli tahmin yapmak zorunda kaldığımız yaşamımızda tahmin etmede daha yetenekli hale gelinebilir. Yazar da okurun daha iyi bir tahminci olması için birçok konuya değinmiş.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who enjoys reading practical guides on statistics and other related mathematical subjects [1], I found this book to be refreshing and enjoyable the way it dealt with the subject of how to outsmart others, and even machines, and the main way this could be done was to have a sense of humility about our abilities to be random. Indeed, over and over again in this roughly 300 page book the need for people to be humble and to not exaggerate our own abilities at strategic memory and intuition was shown to be the most essential aspect of outsmarting others. In other words, the best way to be smarter than others was to both know patterns and to know ourselves to be beings who operate within fairly constrained patterns that can be immensely easy to determine across a variety of human endeavors, from playing Paper, Rock, Scissors to winning office pools for NCAA Tournament brackets to falsifying our expense records and tax returns. The fact that mankind is so bad at being random is actually quite remarkable.

The book is a practical book on the intersection between statistics and psychology, divided roughly into two halves. The first half consists of chapters containing material on how to outsmart others based on the lack of randomness of human beings, looking at the history of the Zenith broadcast experiments and containing advice on how to outsmart rock, paper, scissors (usually by guessing paper), how to outguess multiple-choice tests (by picking none/all and a few other tips), how to outguess the lottery (by not playing), how to outguess tennis serves, how to outguess baseball and football, soccer penalty kicks, card games, passwords, crowd-sourced ratings, fake numbers, manipulated numbers, and Ponzi schemes. Most of these depend on the fact that real random numbers alternate far less often than the random numbers people chose do, and that human beings alternate a lot because we are most comfortable that way. The second part of the book consists on how to outguess people by dismissing the "hot hand" theory that suppose people get "in the zone" when they really do not, telling people how to outguess bracket pools, office football pools, Oscar pools, big data, retail and home prices, the future, and the stock market. Overall, the book reminds us that we cannot escape fortune's wheel.

People reading this book and appreciating it are likely to be somewhat cynical people. Someone reading this book is likely to be at least somewhat interested in strategic thinking. As is often the case, outsmarting others is often both more simple and more complicated than it first appears. It is easiest to outsmart people when we are humble about our own ability to be different than other people. What makes us predictable and often less than strategically savvy is a misguided belief that we are somehow smarter than everyone else. Our arrogance makes us stupider, and our humility makes us wiser. It is a curious truth, and one that will likely surprise many of the readers of this book who will wish to have their ego gratified, or who may think that they are somehow immune from the patterns of humanity when they are not, but those readers who are savvy will see the truth in this book's approach.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

[Matt Musselman · Rating 2 out of 5]

The concept of the book is fascinating, and the intro and first couple of chapters really deliver, but starting around the baseball chapter or so, it feels less and less like a book you're meant to read and more like an encyclopedia of articles you would read only as each becomes applicable. From one application to the next, there's too much repetition of the same concepts, and when new ones do finally get introduced here or there, they feel almost lost within the concept of a particular sport or game. I would have preferred chapters organized by concept rather than by situation.

Definitely borrow the book and read the first 40 pages or so, but after that you can give it back.

[Kai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some hits, some misses.
Some 'practical' tips, but mostly they serve the purpose of increasing the probability of 'winning' the opponent rather than being foolproof strategies.
Nonetheless, an interesting read.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anybody wanna take me on? Think twice, because you are going to LOSE.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will have to actually read the book rather than just listening to audio version in order to see the charts graphs.

[miss q · Rating 2 out of 5]

Funny how the title claims it’s a “practical” guide, when this is the most theoretical, unrealistic thing I’ve ever read.

[Cody Cheman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Helping Page
In the book Rock Breaks Scissors, the author William Poundstone writes about how to outguess people and things. He talks about how to outthink people and how to outwit them too. In each chapter, the book teaches a new skill. Within
every chapter are different statistics, facts to back up claims, and different
strategies to outguess. Poundstone goes in-depth about how to do everything he
writes about. At the end of every chapter, he writes a small overview restating
what the chapter said. Rock Breaks Scissors goes over a lot of everyday situations and problems that have an easy way to be solved. Poundstone created this book to help people through situations rather than to help people gyp others.
In chapter four, How to Outguess the Lottery, Poundstone wants to teach how to improve the odds of winning. Poundstone states: “The strategy in this chapter is strictly for those who enjoy the lottery as entertainment and are going to play it anyway” (Poundstone 68). This is not a moneymaking scheme. He asserts that this strategy is for people who play for fun all of the time. In the beginning of the chapter there is one story about an MIT statistician, who was one of the first to test theories about different numbers in the lottery. Once he got an almost perfect strategy, he only won ten times in 210 days. For those 210 days he spent $33 per day adding up to an astonishing $6,930. For people who play the lottery as a game this would be no issue because the money is being spent anyway. Most people also probably do not spend in such a big way. In the New Jersey lottery, there is only a 1 in 175,223,510 chance of winning.
Poundstone continues to help in chapter seven when he explains how to outguess soccer penalty kicks. With a penalty kick in soccer, the ball is placed twelve feet away from the goal and a kicker kicks the ball in any of these directions: high left, low left, high right, low right, or directly in the middle. There are 192 square feet for the ball to enter the goal. After the ball is kicked, it takes a one-fifth of a second for it to travel into the goal: “That’s not enough time for the goalie to react” (87). Even when the goalie does dive the correct way, “the kicker scores about 90% of the time” (88). These show that even when the goalies dive, they aren’t very likely to prevent the goal. All this strategy is doing is increasing the kicker’s odds of scoring. There is no way to gyp the goalie in this situation because there is no interaction other than kicking and saving the ball. The goalie can also read this chapter and the statistics that go along with it. When the goalie has read this chapter they dive the way the kicker is most likely kick. For both sides of the party this is a good chapter. It is well balanced and both the kicker and the goalie can use it to their own advantage.
Poundstone continues his benevolence in chapter twenty-two: How to Outguess the Stock Market. He writes about how the stocks change and shows different stocks reflecting his advice. At one point, it is “argued that stock price movements are not random at all. They described a way to outguess the market” (233). This shows that the information Poundstone brings up has already been stated and other people can find this information. Like when PE (price to earnings) is high then the stocks will most likely drop in the future. That means stockholders should avoid buying at a high PE and wait until the PE drops to buy. The time to sell stocks would be when the PE is high. This was already stated by Victor Niederhoffer in 1966. All he is doing is making it easier to find information already there. He is making facts clearer and simpler. It is not harming anyone else if you follow the strategy in chapter twenty-two, it is only helping you.
Poundstone wrote the book Rock Breaks Scissors
to help people, not to gyp or scam others. This book gives statistics to learn
and bases statements off of facts. Poundstone makes information visible to his
readers. He mixes facts with statistics and different images to make the book simple and easy to read. At the end of the book if you wanted to research more about one topic there is even a bibliography with sources. This is a good structure to help people with learning strategies without making the book about stealing and gypping people.





















































Works
Cited


Poundstone, William. Rock Breaks Scissors. Little, Brown and Company, 2014.

[Chris Esposo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun book of simple strategies to increase one's chances of prevailing in simple "games". The definition of "game" is very relaxed in this context and can be anything from "Rock, Papers, Scissors", increasing one's chances of winning a Sweet 16 office pool, or maximizing one's chances of staying profitably in the black for a simple portfolio by leveraging buy-hold rules based on PE. Non-game topics include how to detect true financial/accounting data from false data, mostly using Benford's Law, the phenomena whereby the distribution of the 10 possible digits is skewed towards 3 or 4 relative to the others. Benford's Law, in particular, is discussed at length, and applied to a host of fraud-detection scenarios, like simple hacks of passwords by making simple behavioural/cultural assumptions.

Most of the game-winning strategies in cards, predicting tennis hands, and guessing multiple choice questions reduce to understanding how human erroneously simulate randomness in sequences on the one hand (i.e. I think that if I alternate my serving hand in a tennis match it seems more random than just using one hand over and over again for the entire match), and the other broad tactic is to understand how behavioural predispositions impacts outcomes (i.e. aggressive men are multiple more likely to go for rock in rock, paper, scissors).

Interesting overall, these simple strategies can probably be defeated easily once identified, but since most people will apply themselves when playing these simple games, are probably fairly effective in practice. Recommend

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do I enter the real world of work or go on to get my master's degree were my 1996 life options. It wouldn't hurt to take the GRE just in case. The 1996 temp agency where I worked placed me in a non-profit office job that happened to have a few GRE prep books. One of those is what we would nowadays call a "hack." GRE Hacks.

This miracle prep book contained such gems as:

- angles are drawn to scale. If the geometry question is asking for the angle of C and C looks like a 90 degree angle, then it is.

- when in doubt, choose the longest answer.

- when in doubt and all answers are the same length, choose B.

- if All The Above or None Of The Above are choices, the answer is statistically one of them.

I don't remember the name of the book and definitely don't remember the author, but I bet William Poundstone heard of it. Rock Breaks Scissors is the exact same idea expanded beyond the GRE to include data, investing, and sports brackets.

Using his Rock, Paper, Scissors game advice, I beat my husband in successive friendly games. Then told him the statistical secrets, so now I'm back to square one trying to read his mind.

Really interesting read about the predictable behavior of the human being. Poundstone's Doomsday Calculation is the same vein. It's not telepathy predicting what a person will do; it's knowing human behavior.

My GRE score ended up being far higher than what I'm capable of. I'm nowhere near gifted as a student and historically rate average on all standardized tests despite my A/B grades. Turned out, I was sick of school and ended up entering the real work force. I've never gone back for any master's degree and feel fine about it.

[Jackson Wolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

The opening of this book is amazing - historical background on interesting technology that relates to the psychological topic. The chapters are organized well, with sections segueing into one another neatly and concisely. Mixing graphs, statistics, and complicated theoretical examples with easy to understand practical advice lifted the book up and over the bar. Many books like this (claiming to be guides at winning arguments, being "smarter", etc.) tend to focus only on practical aspects and do not touch on the more theoretical or technical side. However, an imbalance with more technical information can make the book almost unreadable, or bare minimum, boring. Most of the chapters were enjoyable, and felt like they were applicable immediately (stock market, rock paper scissors, discounts) or at least applicable when in such a situation (office pools for games, stocks). By far the most interesting segment was how the IRS and other agencies used Benford's Law to find criminals, and how humanity truly does think alike. Comparing it to though processes in other situations put into perspective how the numbers 1, 5, and 0 are favored - this being said, the chapter on stocks was far too long and felt like a slog near the end. Skipping some pieces is almost mandatory for a good experience, and splitting the chapter into three or even four parts might elevate the book to the next level. It worked well, and writing a book purely on thought is no small task, so for what it is, it is an amazing book. If it was graded it on an objective scale, it would score much lower, but it meets every expectation and goes beyond.

[Heather Sinclair · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book explains some complicated statistical methods, breaking them down into an easy-to-read book. Well, not *that* easy-to-read, really.

I found the concepts interesting and at times eye-opening, but this book was dry. It was a tough slog through some of the chapters, and others I skipped completely.

The redemption, is that the techniques described for outguessing and outwitting are totally practical and I'm ready to put several into practice right now.

Recommended for fans of statistics, probability, and "randomness" (you'll get it when you read the book).

[Bill Glover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating bit about Benford’s laws/laws of anomalous numbers. More proof of human inability to understand or emulate (even with understanding) random sequences. That message is front and center in some of Malcolm Gladwell’s stuff, and of course Nate Silver’s writing.
This one has a poor title, it’s not a good gambling aide, and it’s not going to help you make with the business success. It is a fun look at how the random is elusive to a human brain designed, out of necessity, to create patterns from small or misleading data sets.

[St Fu · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a bunch of books out that argue that "we" are not all that rational. This book is the practical application of that insight. In other words, this book shows how to weaponize the predictability of others and/or to protect yourself from others misuse of your predictability. Spending time on the battleground of a world where this is rampant depressed me. That others are eager to get out there and win these battles depressed me even more. At the same time, some of the strategies presented fascinated me.

[Aydın Tezcan · Rating 3 out of 5]

İnsanların kendilerini "rassal" yapmaya çalışırken ne kadar "tahmin edilebilir" olduğunu anlattığı belli bölümleri ilginçti.
Örneğin, yazı tura oynarken iki kez yazı gelse bir sonrakine ne gelmesini beklersiniz? Herkesin kendine göre bir patterni oluyormuş. Bunun gibi, önceden alınan veriler üzerinden sizlerin neler yapabileceğiniz tahmin edebilen kişiler oluyor.
Bana son bölümleri, özellikle borsayla hiç ilgim olmaması sebebiyle ilginç gelmedi. Ama borsa meraklıları için daha okunabilir bölümler olabilir bu sayfalar.

[Suhrob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poundstone is one of my pop-sci writers, because he has a very wide range, writes well and doesn't shirk away from the more technical parts of the topic.

This book takes it's theme from the observation that people are not great in generating random sequences and applies it to several areas.

I've enjoyed this particular book a bit less, because most chapters seemed a bit inconsequential and I was also mostly familiar with the effects.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book demonstrates how human psychology has trouble understanding randomness. For the person who knows this and the common, non-random trends, they can take advantage to win at Rock, Paper, Scissors or to find forged numbers on a balance sheet. An enjoyable read featuring a fair bit of statistics, though it would have been more impactful if the numbers presents were more recent (most of the financial numbers went through 2012).

[Remo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is misleading, but I liked the book. It's about how predictable people can be, even when they think they're being random. This is sort of in keeping with Nate Silver and behavioral economics books I've read. If you're into that genre then you might like this book. Chapters are short and have a quick summary at the end.

[Sigurd Plassen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, not entertaining

The topics and content are interesting, and the examples the author uses are good. There's an obvious effort involved in the pre-work here. However, the chapters are quite repetitive, and at least half the book seems to be just filling material. Still enjoyed it and quote it regularly.

[Carlo Corti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of a silly little book that talks about odds of all kinds of things (gambling, stock market, rock paper scissors) etc. by looking at odds of things over the long run. Not terribly enlightening in any area, but the pattern of not-quite-randomness that emerges does show some human tendency in may of these realms.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a super fun read that discusses how various ways randomness can fool humans. He mentions tips on how to maximize winnings in football pick’em, the state lottery, rock/paper/scissors, and other games. There are interesting chapters on detecting accounting fraud using Benford’s Law and how to guess passwords. I appreciated the end of chapter summaries.

[Jen Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some sections were more convincing than others, but I enjoyed the technique of applying human's randomness fallacies to outguess people across a broad variety of situations. The history with Shannon's guessing machine at Bell Labs was a memorable prologue.