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This reddit post explains an episode of Seinfeld:

When deciding who gets the new apartment, Jerry tells George he'll 'choose' him for it after a failed attempt at coin flip. Jerry takes odds and George takes evens. What the hell are they doing? I have never heard of this game.

The answers link to an urban dictionary entry:

Choose Game
Basically, you choose odds or evens and remark "Once, twice, three, SHOOT!" each player either holds out a closed fist, 1 finger, or 2 fingers, therefore the total can either add up to 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4. If it is 0, no player wins. If it is even (2,4) the evens player wins and if it's odd (1,3) the odds player wins.

Seinfeld: George and Jerry played the Choose game in 'The Robbery' Episode to decide who should get the apartment, Jerry ends up winning.

Is the "Choose Game" an actual game?

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  • I'm not sure, exactly, how to tag this one.
    – Mou某
    Jan 28, 2020 at 5:10
  • Are you asking whether it satisfied some game theoretic definition of "game"? Whether it is something that people actually play? Something else?
    – Acccumulation
    Jan 28, 2020 at 6:51
  • Yeah, whether or not it is something that people actually play.
    – Mou某
    Jan 28, 2020 at 7:31

2 Answers 2

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I've never seen odds and evens played in real life, but I have seen it several times presented in media. It appears to be a reasonably common method of resolving disputes, similar to rock-paper-scissors, with the advantage of draws being less of an issue. It does have the disadvantage, however, of the different options being less distinct; it is easier to switch two fingers into three as you see what your opponent is doing, than it is to switch paper into rock.

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  • Can confirm this game is played in real life.
    – L. Scott Johnson
    Jan 28, 2020 at 13:55
  • Is it really only 0-2 fingers?
    – Mou某
    Jan 28, 2020 at 14:10
  • Agree with LScott that this is a real game. Didn't you have to say "Shoot for it?" or something similar to invoke this game?
    – Jim
    Jan 28, 2020 at 14:23
  • I've played this in real life, and we used 2 fingers when doing so.
    – Aetherfox
    Jan 28, 2020 at 14:26
  • @Jim we'd just say "odds or evens?" and hold a fist up in the "ready" position. Never really considered that to be its name, that's just how the game was invited.
    – L. Scott Johnson
    Jan 28, 2020 at 22:03
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I have never seen someone else do this but a friend of mine and I use to play a similar game to decide who is the first player in our games of Dominion especially when there are more than two players:

  1. We choose one player who is the 0. player, all other players are then numbered according to the player order (the highest number is then [number of players]-1).
  2. All players simultaneously show a number from 0 to [number of players]-1 with their fingers (luckily we never played with more than 6 people).
  3. The sum of the fingers divided by [number of players] leaves a remainder of R (which is also a number from 0 to [number of players]-1).
  4. R is the number of the starting player.

So even though it is not exactly the game you described it shares a few properties with it.

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