Plus Advent Calendar Door #4: Curious dice

You know the scene… You're all tired and emotional from overindulging at Christmas lunch. It's still two hours til the Doctor Who Christmas special so you decide to play a game to while away the time. How would you like to ensure that you always beat your sister and annoying cousin Geoffrey? Dear readers, we present to you the Grime dice invented by our enigmatic friend James Grime.

These dice are special because although the green die is likely to beat the red die, the red to beat the yellow, the yellow to beat the blue and the blue to beat the purple, the purple die has its chance to shine in the Sun and tends to beat the green! If this sounds confusing, it works in a similar way to the familiar game rock-paper-scissors, or the slightly less well-known rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock.This is because both games are non-transitive. You can read all about them in James' lovely article or watch his explanation below.

You can find out more about non-transitive games in the Plus articles Winning odds and Let 'em roll.

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