Rock Paper Scissors As A Sport

What is the World RPS Society?

The World RPS Society, which i believe, they just moved their headquarters from the Trinity Plaza in Toronto, i believe they're now set up in Calgary, Alberta, they just moved their facilities. The World RPS society traces their history i believe back to the Scissors Paper Stone club which was in England in the 1800s. The club fell on hard times, went into serious decline, and was then restarted by Doug and Graham Walker. They are the 2 who have really done quite a bit of work to restore rock paper scissors to the days of its greatest glory. They host a website, they host educational conferences, they run tournaments and they also host the International World Championships in Toronto once a year, which brings players form Norway, Japan, Australia, really from all over the world, to compete.

What is the USARPS League?

The USARPS League is a league that was started in 2004. And the idea was to host really one of the largest distributed RPS tournaments in 250 different US markets. And sort of boil those down into the top players in each region, and then bring all those players on a national level in the US to compete in Vegas for 50 grand. And really, it sort of filled a gap in professional rock paper scissors. Whereas a lot of the larger tournaments, like the Internationals in Toronto, The World RPS Internationals bring the players to the tournament, the USARPS League sought to bring the sport to the people. And so really you didn't have to travel a 1000 miles to go to play against 600 people in RPS. You can go to the bar down the street and play against - you know, 12 people, 30 people, and get a chance to go to Vegas and compete for serious money.

How is cheating handled in Rock Paper Scissors?

The subject of cheating in competitive Rock Paper Scissors is of prime concern. The referees are always on the lookout to see players who are trying to get an unfair advantage over the other players. And you'll see people do things like a late throw; like a one-two-three shoot, players will do that and try to sneak in a throw switch at the last minute. There's also a technique called slow rolling, where players will throw down, and one player will throw paper, and then the other player in slow motion, you can see they were going to throw rock, but changed it from a losing throw to a winning throw at the last minute. So this is typically viewed as just very poor play. Typically, any referee who's been around for any length of time knows how to spot this sort of thing. And they'll call a player on it if they think it was an accident, which sometimes happens, especially with younger players, less experienced players, they'll give a warning or they'll explain what's going on and let it slide. Typically, after that they'll deduct a point or they'll award a point to the opponent by a way of punishing them for that. It goes all the way up to ejecting a person from the match. It really depends on what they're doing. There are other throws, like dynamite, which is considered a very heinous throw, “ Dynamite beats everything” and it really throws out the parity of the game. So a lot of times, at some tournaments, if a player comes out with dynamite, they'll be ejected from the tournament. No second chances.