The Catalyst

By Cassondra Renfro, Reporter

Rock paper scissors is well known as a kid’s game, usually to decide who’s “it” in a game of tag or who has to get all the crayons put away. Yet nowadays, rock paper scissors isn’t just a game, it’s a sport.
According to, worldrps.com/ rock-paper-scissors (also known as scissors-paper-stone, paper-rock-scissors jan-ken-pon, roshambo, ching-chang-wulla, and many derived terms), is the world’s most popular two-person method decision-making process that has now become so popular that there is a USA Rock Paper Scissors League (USARPS) and a World Rock Paper Scissors Society (WRPS).

In these competitions, a standardized set of rules is used to allow people like Sean Sears to beat out 300 other contestants in a USARPS tournament in 2008 and walking out of the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino with $50,000. In past years, other contestants came away from similar competitions with cash prizes ranging from $100 to $5,000 and of course the grand prize ($50,000).

Regardless of roshambo’s obvious sportsman-like qualities, wikipedia.org offers evidence that there may be some scientific merit to the game. In terms of the mathematical concept of non-transitivity, Rock defeats scissors, and scissors defeat paper, but rock loses to paper. In fact, RPS could be called "intransitive" because A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, yet A is not greater than C.

Yet no matter how many mathematicians or scientists insist there is more to rock paper scissors than meets the eye, players take the game seriously. Sites such as worldrps.com offer rules (including “Safety First! Always ensure that all players have removed sharp jewelry and watches,” and “think twice before using RPS for life-threatening decisions,”) while other sites, such as usarps.com, bring a touch of humor to the game.

According to usarps.com, there is a complete psychology to the competition: “In a series of double blind scientific studies that were conducted over 15 years at the Howard Jung Psychological Institute in Switzerland, doctors learned significant character traits about people as they assessed their game play.” Some of their findings include facts like “If a woman throws three straight rocks with any kind of regularity - she's a gold-digger,” “If a man mostly throws scissors, he also Googles his name every day hoping he finally commands a presence on the web, but always logs off weeping in shame,” and “If a woman rarely throws rock, she takes more than two hours putting her make-up on in the morning, and still wears too much eye-liner.”

While usarps.com looks at the funnier side of the so called sport, many people are aggressively serious about roshambo. And although this year’s competition is over, you can still play online against other worthy competitors and get some practice. The rock paper scissors championships are only open to players over 21 years old, but it’s never too early to become a pro – it seems to pay pretty well and you’d be able to say “hey, I’m USA rock paper scissors champion” on job applications after you’re too weak and feeble to continue playing the world’s most popular two-person method decision-making process game.