World championship draws Rock, Paper, Scissors fans
And the basis for the upcoming world championship sponsored by the Toronto-based World RPS Society. Nearly 1,000 players from Canada, six U.S. states and the United Kingdom will gather for the tournament Saturday. Twenty-six trained referees will decide the bracketed, round-robin competition. Top prize is $5,000 Canadian (about $3,800 U.S.).
Players are training — some with coaches. They're watching opponents' videotapes. They're deciding strategy and studying competition rules. They're pondering "gambits," series of throws with names such as "the avalanche" (three rocks in a row).
"There's a complex simplicity to it," said player Shawn Ring, of New Brunswick, N.J. "It's a thinking person's game."
That might surprise most folks, who remember Rock, Paper, Scissors as a common game played with hand signals: rock, a closed fist; scissors, two open fingers outstretched; paper, flat hand with downturned palm. Rock "breaks" scissors, scissors "cuts" paper, paper "covers" rock.
"We see this game as strategy at its most basic, yet most profound," said Graham Walker, head of the society.
Years ago, on a brutal November day, Walker and his brother used RPS to determine who would haul firewood. After a best-of-15 series, "we said, wait a minute, there's really more to this than just a game," Walker said. "Because we knew each other, we got feelings about what the other one would throw."
He launched the World RPS Society Web site (www.worldrps.com) in 1995. Now there are T-shirts and sweat shirts, intense bulletin-board discussions, online lectures on technique, an executive steering committee and more than 600 card-carrying members.
The society also developed the Complete Rules and Regulations of tournament RPS play. There are approved ways to "approach" (raising the hand) and "pump" (moving before throwing). Each hand signal has strict standards: "Rock is represented by a closed fist with the thumb resting at least at the same height as the topmost finger on the hand. The thumb must not be concealed by the fingers." Referees are trained to spot violations, keep matches moving and settle disputes.
Last year's first world championship drew 256 competitors and a raucous crowd of hundreds. First place went to Pete Lovering, of Toronto, on a series of throws that ended with Rock, Paper, Rock, Rock. He won $1,200 Canadian and a gold medal.
U.S. competitors this year include Washington, D.C., resident Theo Murphy, who has pledged winnings to two nonprofits. "Like many people in the tournament, I've played for as long as I can remember," he said. "I think that's one of the reasons behind all the interest, the nostalgia element."
Jason Simmons, also of Washington, just returned from training in Hong Kong. In a slump, he meditated beneath the giant Buddha statue on Lantau Island. After mulling the Buddha's outstretched hands, "I began concentrating on using Paper. After that, I went on to win all my matches," said Simmons, who plays "professionally" as Master Roshambollah.
Roshambo is one of the game's many names. Depending on where you're playing, the game may be Jenken or Jan Ken Pon or Shnik, Shnak, Shnuk or Farggling.
Most experts believe it originated in Asia, where the best players still reside.
"They're light-years ahead of us, strategy-wise," Simmons said. "They're very deep players. Most don't compete internationally because they just don't have anything to prove to the rest of the world."
London player Benjamin Peterson translated a Japanese Jan Ken Pon history Web site. "The Toronto championships are dwarfed by the matches that used to take place in Japan," he said. "TV stations used to sponsor them, a whole arena full of people would play at once."
Peterson's Web site (www.jbrowse.com/text/janken.shtml) details the game's roots in Chinese "ken," in which victory was decided by the shape of an extended hand. Quoting Shogakukan's "Nihonkokugodaijiten," a Japanese dictionary, it says ken arrived in Japan in the early 1640s.
The Japanese version also was influenced by the "sansukumi way of thinking," based on ancient mythology in which the snake fears the slug, the slug fears the frog, the frog fears the snake.
"It's not just martial arts, but everything in life," said Harvey Liebergott, author of "Scissors, Rock, Paper: A Circular Path Through the Martial Arts." "One's greatest strengths are also one's greatest weaknesses."