If ya follow quantum game theory, you could be forgiven for thinking that quantum players always trounce their classical counterparts like T Rex versus the cavemen.
But it ain’t so. After some egg scratchin’ physicists have realised that quantum games are actually entirely different from classical games and so it ain’t fair to compare them. And even when they do compare em, quantum players usually cannot win against classical players because the classical player often destroys any quantum advantage his opponent can muster.
For example, in a coin flipping game, some theorists have suggested that a quantum player can outwit her classical opponent by putting the coin into a superposition of states. But she wouldn’t have to play long to find that the classical player destroyed the superposition whenever he touched the coin.
(There are a subset of games involving quantum telepathy in which a quantum player can outwit a classical player using entanglement but we ain’t talkin about those here.)
So Nati “Aha” Aharon and Lev “Itate” Vaidman at Tel Aviv University in Israel ask whether a quantum player can ever beat a classical player in anything resembling a decent game that doesn’t rely on entanglement.
The answer says Aha Aharon is yes, albeit in a rather contrived situation. The game involves one player placing a particle in one of three places and the second player attempting to work out what the first player has done. It turns out that if the first player puts the particle into a superposition of states, so it exists in all three places at once, then she will always win against classical player.
Who are they tryin’ to kid? That ain’t quantum playing, it’s quantum cheatin. Pull a stunt like that at a poker table and you’d be dribbling in an alley behind the casino before you can say “quantum teleportation”.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0710.1721 :Can Quantum Mechanics help to Win Games?