But pirate 3 would have to see this comming, and would give a 50/50 split (or something) between him and nr 5. Pirate nr 5 would accept this, as he sees what would come to him otherwise.

Now we`re talkng! But no, that`s not it...

Pirates 3, 2 and 1 would try to stop the other pirates from throwing them overboard because they want to survive.

You have to remember that they are rational pirates.

Exactly. But that`s still not the answer...

It isn't`? Awesome. I'll have to think some more than.

Okay, idea. To make it easy, I assume that there are 100 gold as total.

Pirate one suggests this.

1 - 33

2 - 33

3 - 0

4 - 0

5- 33

Pirate 3 and 4 rejects.

Pirate 5 accepts, as he knows that if it gets to 4 he's doomed.

Now, Pirate 2 may accept.

The best deal he could make, is

2 - 50

3 - 0

4 - 0

5 - 50

Once again, 3 and 4 reject.

5 may accept, but that's not certain. His best deal now, would be to get 3 to offer

3 - 50

4 - 0

5 - 50

Nr 4 rejects.

Pirate 5 would rather have this than he would want to accept nr 2's offer.

But, he is in the risk of this happening.

Nr 3 suggests

3 - 90

4 - 0

5 - 10

But, this paragraph here, says:  First of all, they want to survive (duh...). Secondly, they all want to get the most ammount of gold as possible. And thirdly, all the pirates hate each other and would choose to throw another one overboard if it won`t affect the first two factors. 

Therefore, he will choose the one that secures him the most money. So if it comes to this, he will accept nr 2's offer.

So nr 1 has to do something to beat his offer, but he can't. 

His best offer, is

1 - 0

2 - 50

3 - 0

4 - 0

5- 50

But this doesn't help. 2 and 5 will reject too, as they can get the same offer later, and they would rather get rid off him.

So, my final answer is:

1 -Thrown over board

2 - 50

3 - 0

4 - 0

5 - 50

The pirates would get nothing because a ninja swoops in and steals it all. After all, ninjas ARE cooler than pirates!

Seriously, I'll try to reason things out :

Since what the pirates value the most is their own lives. To survive Pirate 1 would have to sacrifice money for his life so he'd propose :

1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 50
5 - 50

4 would accept the offer because it's the most he can pull out of the deal and so would 5, 3 and 4 would of course refuse and pirate 1 would approve of his own proposal.

One advice: Stop thinking about what you would do and start thinking like a pirate...

The bolded statement is right. But the problem only has one solution, and that's not it.

EDIT: Just noticed the first bolded statement and... you win! I like pirates, but I freakin LOVE ninjas (the answer is still not right though...)

Okay... Arr.

Pirate 1 suggests

1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 99
5 - 1

Nr 4 accepts, as this is his best change of achieving this much money, since nr 3 could beat him with assistance of nr 5.

Nr 5 doesn't want it to come to nr 4's chose, so he wants to accept. He accepts this above other offers, because he is likely to earn more now.

Arr.

I hope this thread never dies

Okay I think I've got something :

We all know what happens if we have only two pirates (Scenario 1) :

4 - 100
5 - 0

It passes on the tie breaker

Now for 3 pirates (Scenario 2) :

3 - 100, 4 - 0, 5 - 0 would get 3 killed but if 3 is killed we go back to scenario 1 so at this time pirate 5 would accept anything over 0. So at 3 pirates the only possible outcome is :

3 - 99
4 - 0
5 - 1

This gets accept by 3 and 5.

Now if we have 4 pirates (scenario 3):

Pirate 2 knows pirate 5 gets 1 piece in scenario 2 and 0 in scenario 1 so he'll be willing to take the 1 piece again . So we get :

2 - 99
3 - 0
4 - 0
5 - 1

This gets accepted in the tie breaker.

Now we get to our actual scenario, 5 pirates :

Since pirate 4 gets nothing in scenarios 2 & 3, he'll be willing to take anything over 0. So we get this offer :

1 - 98
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 1
5 - 1

Final answer?