Three Hat Colors Puzzle
A team of three people decide on a strategy for playing the following
game.
Each player walks into a room. On the way in, a fair coin is tossed for each player, deciding that player’s hat color, either red or blue. Each player can see the hat colors of the other two players, but cannot see her own hat color.
After inspecting each other’s hat colors, each player decides on a response, one of: “I have a red hat”, “I had a blue hat”, or “I pass”. The responses are recorded, but the responses are not shared until every player has recorded her response.
The team wins if at least one player responds with a color and every color response correctly describes the hat color of the player making the response. In other words, the team loses if either everyone responds with “I pass” or someone responds with a color that is different from her hat color.
What strategy should one use to maximize the team’s expected chance of winning?
These could be the strategies to maximize the chances of winning!
Each player walks into a room. On the way in, a fair coin is tossed for each player, deciding that player’s hat color, either red or blue. Each player can see the hat colors of the other two players, but cannot see her own hat color.
After inspecting each other’s hat colors, each player decides on a response, one of: “I have a red hat”, “I had a blue hat”, or “I pass”. The responses are recorded, but the responses are not shared until every player has recorded her response.
The team wins if at least one player responds with a color and every color response correctly describes the hat color of the player making the response. In other words, the team loses if either everyone responds with “I pass” or someone responds with a color that is different from her hat color.
What strategy should one use to maximize the team’s expected chance of winning?
These could be the strategies to maximize the chances of winning!
Comments
Post a Comment