Optimal Strategy in "Guess Who?": Beyond Binary Search — mentioned by gobdovan

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:28:24 GMT

I thought this would be about how you can beat binary search in the 'Guess Who?' game. There's a cool math paper about it [0] and an approachable video by the author. [1] [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03327 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3RNB8eOSx0

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Optimal Strategy in "Guess Who?": Beyond Binary Search — mentioned by abetusk

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 22:57:52 GMT

The idea is that if you're winning you can just do a binary search, but if you're losing, it's better to take some risks by making narrower guesses. For example, let's say it's the last turn and your opponent is about to win. Say you may have 2 options but your opponent has 4 options. Instead of whittling it down to 2 options, it's better to guess one of the four. How outrageous should your guesses be is the content of the result and paper. Paper is on archive (and linked from the video): https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03327

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Optimal Strategy in "Guess Who?": Beyond Binary Search · HackerPapers discussions

Optimal Strategy in "Guess Who?": Beyond Binary Search — mentioned by gobdovan

Optimal Strategy in "Guess Who?": Beyond Binary Search — mentioned by abetusk