Go First Dice - Numberphile
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters cite it as the original, thorough explanation of Go First Dice, both when newer dice stories appear and as a jumping-off point into dice math and polyhedra.
Recommended by 2 people across 2 different months, 2023 to 2026.
What it is
James Grime presents Go First Dice on Numberphile: sets of dice numbered so that every die has an equal chance of rolling the highest value in any round, which makes the order of play fair and tie-free. He explains the construction behind them, shows physical examples, and covers his own paper on the topic.
Cited in 1 Wikipedia article, including Go First Dice.
What people said
Recommends NKosmatos · 2023-04 · Hacker News · on “Catalan Solids”
I was watching this excellent video by Numberphile [0] on Go First Dice [1] and I went down the rabbit hole of dices [2] and Archimedean solids[3], and thought it would make for a nice HN submission :-) [0] [LINK] [1] [this video] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK] P.S. This is another great video from my favorite James Grime, [LINK]
Recommends mcraiha · 2025-11 · Hacker News · on “The Eleven-Faced Die That Emulates Two Six-Sided Dice”
The recreational dice scene has lots of these "not really useful in real world but we still cracked the math" kind of solutions. [this video] (Go First Dice - Numberphile)
Cites Zebfross · 2026-09 · Hacker News · on “New type of dice guarantees no tie when deciding who goes first”
For those as confused as me, I'm pretty sure this isn't "new". Numberphile talked about doing even better than this several years ago: [this video]