Decisions, Decisions

Not What to Decide, but How

Dan Goldstein is Assistant Professor at London Business School and editor of Decision Science News. See full bio

November 12, 2008, Behavioral Economics

Let's find the world's best player of this game

Let's find the world's best game player.

Do you have brainy friends in your social network? We're trying to find the best players in the world at a game of skill and luck.

About half a year ago, I posted here a game of skill and luck. Many people played, and it was interesting to see the variation in scores. Some people got it, and some just didn't. Then I had an idea: let's try to find some of the best players in the world at this.

But how? While the world's a big place, through social networks, it can get much smaller.

As my host (I'm currently a visiting researcher at Yahoo! Research) Duncan Watts, and others have shown, a short number of email forwards can connect two people living on opposite sides of the world: the "six degrees of separation" idea. The landmark experiment Watts was reviving was carried about by Stanley Milgram and published right here in Psychology Today (Stanley Milgram, "The Small World Problem", Psychology Today, 1967, Vol. 2, 60-67)!

The same idea should work for finding smart people as well. If each person who plays the game then forwards it on to some people they know who are even better at the game, eventually we may come across a person who really gets it and achieves a fantastically long winning streak.

So, let's give it a try. Play the game for yourself. Then, following the instructions in the game, send it on to some friends who will score better. (Don't pass on a link to this blog page, it's important you pass on the link you see when you play the game, this way we can see how far it's spreading).

Good luck! Click here to play and then pass it on to some smart, persistent friends!