Your boss doesn't like you and wants to remove you but also wants to show others that he has given you a fair chance. He uses a game like this one but instead he adds a twist to this game by bringing a competitor his favorite subordinate, who is totally clueless. You are given a bowl that says LEAVE on both slips, and he is given a bowl that says STAY on both slips, both of which are put on a revolving table.

The boss says that you and the subordinate have each written a STAY and a LEAVE slip for your own bowl, but you know what is really in the bowls, while the subordinate does not. You both are supposed to pick one slip from your own bowl. A friend of yours says he will check the slips left in each bowl to prevent foul play.

Suddenly a prankster spins the table and now you don't know which is your bowl. You want to do three things: to stay, show that you have not done foul play, and show that either the subordinate's bowl is rigged or he drew LEAVE. What strategy do you use?

Ask the competitor to choose first, then ask to choose from his bowl, since if the game is fair you still should have the same odds against you.

He believes the game is fair, so if his paper says "stay" he will agree, so you also get stay (which shows the game was rigged), and if he gets "leave" he won't agree,  so you choose from your bowl and you still stay. You can deduce from his response what he drew, you always stay, and you show he drew leave or that his bowl was rigged.

Posted by Lee on 2006-08-20 22:00:48