RPS

Every time we have to go anywhere, we carpool.  I’d say up to 7 people, we’ll take 1 car.  Maybe once we had 8.  So that means every time we drive we need to decide who drives and nobody ever wants to drive.  We’ve settled this a number of ways, including MarioKart races, guilt trips, and (worst of all) taking turns.  But mostly, we’re using rock-paper-scissors.

Because of the high stakes nature of the rock-paper-scissors (RPS) battles (losing means you have to drive, say, to the center, which is a total of 4 miles.  Woof.) we’ve really gotten into trying to figure out the other person’s game so that we can guarantee victory and not end up in the driver’s seat.  But that takes a lot of work.

All this RPS reminds me of the things I’ve heard in the past about the game.  I heard there’s a professional sort of circuit.  I heard they have different moves.  And I wondered if its all true.  Here’s what I found:

First, there is money to be won in RPS.  A dude named Tim Conrad won 7 g’s playing RPS by throwing alternating rocks and paper while his adversary (and, in an interesting twist, best friend, Tom Butkin) continued to throw rocks.

Second, they’ve got moves.  Pro-RPS is a best-of-3 match where a tie counts as a round.  So that means if both players throw rock twice, then there’s a paper to rock, the player who threw the paper wins the round and the hole match.  So that means in every round there’s three throws that you’ll use.  Many pros preselect the moves.  A three-throw set is called a gambit.  And there’s only 27 of these.  Some have names, some don’t.

At this point, I think it’d be a good idea for me to get a handle on all the gambits so that I can outplay my teammates.  I found a few on worldrps.com, and those are the following with my thoughts:

RRR-Avalanche-makes sense, it’s a lot of rocks

PPP-Bureaucrat-same thing, but all about the paper

PSR-Crescendo-don’t get this

RSP-Denouement-don’t even know what this means

RPP-Fistfull o’ Dollars-should be self-explanatory

PSS-Paper Dolls-you cut the paper, then you cut it again!

PSP-Paper Sandwich-it seems like the scissors are in the sandwich?

SSS-Toolbox-I don’t keep scissors in my toolbox, but this is good enough.

So what about the others?  Here’s the full list:  Included is what I came up with, some replacements for some old ones, some of the ones above, and some I can’t think of anything good for.  I’m warning you, some are pretty poor quality.

RRR-avalanche (above)

RRP-“The U2”-they rock twice, then they get their paper.

RRS-“Takeover”-Knife to fistfight?  From Takeover by Jay-Z?  Not really?

RPR

RPP-“fistfull o’ dollars.”  I love this.  From above.

RPS-“the namesake”

RSR-“Garage band”-all they do is rock and cut (class).

RSP

RSS-“the feeds”-rss feeds, get it?

PRR

PRP-“knuckle sandwich” this is one of my favorites

PRS

PPR-“the paperweight”-first you put down the papers, then you put the rock on top.

PPP-“Bureaucrat” from above

PPS-“paper chaser” Start with papers and then finish with something to mix it up.  In honor of T.I.

PSP-I’m thinking PSP should be “PSP” or “Playstation”

PSS-paper dolls from above

SRR-“cutting rocks”-do with this what you will.

SRP-“The Goldmine”-you cut the rock to get your paper.

SRS

SPR

SPP-“Arts n Crafts”-a pair of scissors and lots of paper.

SPS

SSR-“The Miner”-they cut and cut at that rock.

SSP-“fiskars” Because someone makes paper off making scissors.

SSS-toolbox from above

So that leaves us with RPR, RSP, PRR, PRS, SRS, SPR, and SPS left to do.  I can’t think of anything anymore.  But if you can get anything, it’d be helpful.  Let us know and I’ll put it up if it’s good.  Also, please replace any of mine.

And yeah, I guess I do think this is a good use of my time.