New web game that takes 2 min to play (and perhaps a lifetime to master?): Outsmart. “Five rounds, first to 3 wins. In each round, the higher bet wins. You have 100 total points, so bet wisely. Can you outsmart the machine?”
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Victory! 3-1. I bet zero on the second round.
So far throwing the second & fourth round (0 bets) has worked if I manage to win the first one.
I do wonder how much the computer's strategy changes from game to game and round to round.
My initial assumption was that the computer would bet a little more than 1/3 of its pot on the first round, so I bet 40. It bet 28.
I don't get it. I played one entire game and never grasped what is going on. Is it a joke? I assume it's a joke.
took me a handful of games to get it (i _think_ i get it now anyway)
- both you and the computer have 100 points total to bet
- you win the game if you win 3 rounds
- whichever bet is the highest wins the round, but whatever you bet is deducted from your total. so if on round 1 you bet 99 points and win, for round 2 you only have 1 point left to bet
- after the first round, only the winning bet is shown. so if you bet 29 and win, you only know that the computer bet less than or equal to 28
- so it seems to be a game of odds calculation with like some chains of suspicion reasoning
I got outsmarted because it took me forever to figure out I had to enter my bet using the slider thingy!
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