> Well, if deluding myself works, then it's a good strategy to follow!

Sure. Actually it isn't a bad suggestion to try to get the computer to predict what you'll do based on past behavior. I'm just not sure how I'd implement it, and if it would really be worth it.

But you're right that that's why it's fun with two humans playing together. You tie on paper three times in a row, and your instinct is to switch to scissors so you'll cut your opponent's fourth paper -- but a smart player will predict the opponent will do that too, and so you should switch to rock instead. As I mentioned -- or maybe I didn't -- when you play this game against a human opponent, it is truly a fun game. Against the computer, that is truly random, not so much.

When you think about it, it's truly amazing that the human mind seems to be incapable of generating a purely random sequence. I read an article where a math teacher gave his students a homework assignment. The assignment was this: the student either had to flip a coin a hundred times and write down the sequence of results, OR make up the results of the coin tosses and write down a "random" sequence of a hundred heads or tails. The assignment was to be turned in without mentioning which option the student took.

The papers were turned in the next day, and for EVERY assignment, the teacher correctly guessed whether the student had used a real coin or faked the results.

The secret turned out to be some property of random sequences that human nature misunderstands. Unfortunately I don't remember the exact numbers, but it turns out that the probability of having something like six or seven heads in a row in a sequence of one hundred coin tosses is around 99.9%. But a student faking a sequence of a hundred coin tosses is highly unlikely to include a string of that many heads.

I wish I remembered the exact numbers. But anyway, this illustrates in yet another manner how the human mind is seemingly incapable of generating random sequences.