Odd Man Out

Odd Man Out is a simple decision ritual, one of many used among children and street athletes. While devices like Rock Paper Scissors are competitive, Odd Man Out is one of several used not to determine a winner but simply to pick members from a group—for instance, it could be used to decide who rotates out of a team when an odd number of players have formed two teams for a pick-up game of basketball, forcing the remainder player to stay off-court and wait his or her turn.

In Odd Man Out, everyone in the group, on the count of “one, two, three, shoot,” throws fingers. If any one player has thrown a number no other player has thrown, he's the odd man out. This is repeated until that result occurs. If in a group of five, the first round's results are 11222, players shoot again. If the results are 12333, players shoot again, until a result like 22331, in which case the player who shot “one” leaves the group.

A similar method for picking between two people—which could be used to settle the second round in our previous example—is odds and evens. One person calls or is assigned odds. On the call of “one, two, three, shoot,” both players throw fingers, and if the sum is an odd number, odds is selected. (It needs to be determined in advance whether being selected means being the winner or loser.)