somervta comments on The Sin of Underconfidence - Less Wrong

55 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 April 2009 06:30AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (176)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: somervta 06 February 2013 04:08:26AM 0 points [-]

Not if you can go first.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 08 May 2013 03:33:49PM 3 points [-]

So, you go center.

If he goes on a flat side, you're golden (move in a nearly-opposite corner, you can compel victory).

If he goes in a corner, you go 90° away. Now, if he's really acting randomly, he has a 1/6 chance to block your next-turn win.

Then you block his win threat, making a new threat of your own, that he has a 1/4 chance to block. If he does, he'll make the last block half the time. So, a 1/96 chance to tie by moving randomly.

That would be enough to make me nervous if the fate of the world were at stake. Would you like to play Global Thermonuclear War?

Comment author: somervta 08 May 2013 11:38:21PM 1 point [-]

1/96 (I was thinking of a different algorithm, but the probability is the same) would be enough to make me nervous, but I wouldn't call it 'reasonably likely'