From an amusing story about Christie’s and Sotheby’s duking it out for the privilege of auctioning off a $25 million art collection by playing rock, paper, scissors at the behest of the client.

Kanae Ishibashi, the president of Christie’s in Japan…spent the weekend researching the psychology of the game online and talking to friends, including Nicholas Maclean, the international director of Christie’s Impressionist and modern art department.

Mr. Maclean’s 11-year-old twins, Flora and Alice, turned out to be the experts Ms. Ishibashi was looking for. They play the game at school, Alice said, “practically every day.”

“Everybody knows you always start with scissors,” she added. “Rock is way too obvious, and scissors beats paper.” Flora piped in. “Since they were beginners, scissors was definitely the safest,” she said, adding that if the other side were also to choose scissors and another round was required, the correct play would be to stick to scissors – because, as Alice explained, “Everybody expects you to choose rock.”

Sotheby’s took a different tack. “There was some discussion,” said Blake Koh, an expert in Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s in Los Angeles… “But this is a game of chance, so we didn’t really give it that much thought. We had no strategy in mind.”

Christie’s picked scissors; Sotheby’s picked paper. Guess Sotheby’s going to have to start taking the game a bit more seriously!