In article <1994Oct3.160443.35085@hulaw1.harvard.edu> in rec.puzzles,
Sumit Kapur <skapur@fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
This is a simple game that my roomate told me of and that we are still
wondering about. The game has two players, A and B, and goes as follows:
-
Player A rolls a die which returns a random number between 0 and 1.
-
Player B cannot see the die.
-
Player A then tells a number between 0 and 1 to player B.
-
Player B can either roll to beat the number Player A just said,
or Player B can challenge Player A meaning if Player A
was telling the truth about what he rolled, Player A wins.
Otherwise player B wins.
Two questions:
- What is the optimal strategy, if one exists.
- What is player A's edge? 2) is easily answered once 1) has been.
It seems to us that player A must have an advantage, because the simple
algorithm of "always tell the truth" generates an even game, and there
are obvious
improvements that could be made.
Sumit Kapur
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