JustOneMinute: Rocks, Paper, Scissors....Oh, Shoot!

Rocks, Paper, Scissors....Oh, Shoot!

Game theory made simpl e - when in doubt, ask a kid:

It may have been the most expensive game of rock, paper, scissors ever played.

Takashi Hashiyama, president of Maspro Denkoh Corporation, an electronics company based outside of Nagoya, Japan, could not decide whether Christie's or Sotheby's should sell the company's art collection, which is worth more than $20 million, at next week's auctions in New York.

... he resorted to an ancient method of decision-making that has been time-tested on playgrounds around the world: rock breaks scissors, scissors cuts paper, paper smothers rock.

In Japan, resorting to such games of chance is not unusual. "I sometimes use such methods when I cannot make a decision," Mr. Hashiyama said in a telephone interview. "As both companies were equally good and I just could not choose one, I asked them to please decide between themselves and suggested to use such methods as rock, paper, scissors."

What to do, what to do?

"The client was very serious about this," said Jonathan Rendell, a deputy chairman of Christie's in America who was involved with the transaction. "So we were very serious about it, too."

Kanae Ishibashi, the president of Christie's in Japan, declined to discuss her preparations for the meeting. But her colleagues in New York said she spent the weekend researching the psychology of the game online and talking to friends, including Nicholas Maclean, the international director of Christie's Impressionist and modern art department.

Mr. Maclean's 11-year-old twins, Flora and Alice, turned out to be the experts Ms. Ishibashi was looking for. They play the game at school, Alice said, "practically every day."

"Everybody knows you always start with scissors," she added. "Rock is way too obvious, and scissors beats paper." Flora piped in. "Since they were beginners, scissors was definitely the safest," she said, adding that if the other side were also to choose scissors and another round was required, the correct play would be to stick to scissors - because, as Alice explained, "Everybody expects you to choose rock."

OK, so the Christie kids say, start with "scissors". How about over at Sotheby's?

Sotheby's took a different tack. "There was some discussion," said Blake Koh, an expert in Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby's in Los Angeles who was involved in the negotiations with Maspro. "But this is a game of chance, so we didn't really give it that much thought. We had no strategy in mind."

"No strategy in mind". Here's a hint to corporate strivers everywhere - even if that is true, don't admit it. The counterpart to "I'd rather be lucky than good" is, "Justifying a plan that failed is easier than justifying the lack of a plan". Or, as Joe Torre says just about every night now, you can't always control the result, but you can control the effort.

The rest was destiny:

After each house had entered its decision, a Maspro manager looked at the choices. Christie's was the winner: scissors beat paper.

Go with the kid.

MORE: Don't spoil my fun - obviously, there is selection bias here, and this story only made news because of the outcome. And for all I know, the folks at Sotheby's also asked some kids, and are now being adult enough not to blame an eleven year old. I still think the Sotheby's folks should have announced that they had employed three statisticians, a psychologist, an astrologist, and a supercomputer before picking "paper".

UPDATE: Dan Drezner joins in.

Posted by Tom Maguire on April 29, 2005 | Permalink