Rock, Paper, Scissors
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0312030085dec03,1,1899357.story?coll=chi-leisuretempo-hed
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Victory at hand
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Inside the bizarre world of high-stakes Rock Paper Scissors
By Emily Nunn
Tribune staff reporter
December 3, 2003
People tend to throw patterns," Rob Krueger explained over his cell phone as he walked home from his job as director of product development at a Toronto tech firm. "It's tense, so they've got to try to come up with something that's going to help them focus. One common strategy is gambits -- sequences of throws. There's the Avalanche -- that's three rocks. Another basic one is the Toolbox. That would be three pairs of scissors. Then there's the Bureaucrat, three consecutive papers.
"So let's say you've got someone who is having a problem dealing with the pressure onstage. He's getting nervous, he's getting tense, sweat is starting to pour down his face."
"Seriously?" I interrupted, imagining Richard Nixon during the Kennedy debate.
"Seriously" Krueger replied, his faint Canadian inflections coming through over the sounds of traffic. "People take it about as seriously as you can possibly imagine to take Rock Paper Scissors."
Krueger, though, says he had not really taken the "simple and beautiful" game seriously until last month, when he outdueled more than 300 other competitors at -- who knew? -- the 2003 Molson Rock Paper Scissors International World Championship in Toronto. Not only did he win $5,000 Canadian (that's about 3,800 in U.S. dollars), but it landed him on American and Canadian television ("The Today Show," "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Canada's CBC "Sunday Report" and ESPN) and radio shows around the world, from Tokyo to Dublin.
Rock Paper Scissors -- alternatively known around the world as Roshambo, Shnik Shnak Shnuk, Ching Chong Chow and Farggling -- has been holding a world championship only since 1995. But its guiding organization, the RPS Society, was founded in 1842 (as the Scissors Paper Stone Club, in London) and changed its name in 1918, when it relocated to Toronto, where Krueger lives.
"In every sport there's going to be luck," said Krueger, 31. "It could be the lucky bounce that Larry Bird got back in 1981, or whenever, that went straight up off the rim then back through in the final second of the semifinals. It could be somebody hitting a home run on just the right pitch."
But, he says, RPS is much more than a simple game of chance.
Even with luck and the odds on your side, you've still got to know whom you're up against, Krueger pointed out. You've got to scout the other players, observe their style, make a mental note of their habits and then read them when you come face to face.
You've got to strategerize.
He got back to his story about the guy with sweat pouring down his face, whom we'd left anxious and perspiring on the championship stage, before I so rudely interrupted him.
"Now, what does he do? He reaches for a gambit. He pulls out an Avalanche, and then he doesn't have to think. He knows, starting from the beginning of that set, that he is going to throw three rocks in a row."
But gambits are not necessarily the sign of the unthinking RPS player. Krueger himself won with a gambit. "I didn't do it over and over again -- just in the final throws of the match," he said.
"I'd noticed that my opponent had thrown so many rocks [in his earlier matches]. So in the final round, I throw a rock, he throws a rock. That's a stalemate. I sensed an Avalanche was coming, that he was sending three rocks my way. What are the odds of him repeating his rock throw? They're higher than me. I actually only threw four rocks in the final. And I was like, you know what? ... I'm going with a Fistful o' Dollars [rock, paper, paper]," he says, without a trace of the hubris you might expect from a world champion.
(lots more at site, free registraton required)
--------------------
Victory at hand
--------------------
Inside the bizarre world of high-stakes Rock Paper Scissors
By Emily Nunn
Tribune staff reporter
December 3, 2003
People tend to throw patterns," Rob Krueger explained over his cell phone as he walked home from his job as director of product development at a Toronto tech firm. "It's tense, so they've got to try to come up with something that's going to help them focus. One common strategy is gambits -- sequences of throws. There's the Avalanche -- that's three rocks. Another basic one is the Toolbox. That would be three pairs of scissors. Then there's the Bureaucrat, three consecutive papers.
"So let's say you've got someone who is having a problem dealing with the pressure onstage. He's getting nervous, he's getting tense, sweat is starting to pour down his face."
"Seriously?" I interrupted, imagining Richard Nixon during the Kennedy debate.
"Seriously" Krueger replied, his faint Canadian inflections coming through over the sounds of traffic. "People take it about as seriously as you can possibly imagine to take Rock Paper Scissors."
Krueger, though, says he had not really taken the "simple and beautiful" game seriously until last month, when he outdueled more than 300 other competitors at -- who knew? -- the 2003 Molson Rock Paper Scissors International World Championship in Toronto. Not only did he win $5,000 Canadian (that's about 3,800 in U.S. dollars), but it landed him on American and Canadian television ("The Today Show," "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Canada's CBC "Sunday Report" and ESPN) and radio shows around the world, from Tokyo to Dublin.
Rock Paper Scissors -- alternatively known around the world as Roshambo, Shnik Shnak Shnuk, Ching Chong Chow and Farggling -- has been holding a world championship only since 1995. But its guiding organization, the RPS Society, was founded in 1842 (as the Scissors Paper Stone Club, in London) and changed its name in 1918, when it relocated to Toronto, where Krueger lives.
"In every sport there's going to be luck," said Krueger, 31. "It could be the lucky bounce that Larry Bird got back in 1981, or whenever, that went straight up off the rim then back through in the final second of the semifinals. It could be somebody hitting a home run on just the right pitch."
But, he says, RPS is much more than a simple game of chance.
Even with luck and the odds on your side, you've still got to know whom you're up against, Krueger pointed out. You've got to scout the other players, observe their style, make a mental note of their habits and then read them when you come face to face.
You've got to strategerize.
He got back to his story about the guy with sweat pouring down his face, whom we'd left anxious and perspiring on the championship stage, before I so rudely interrupted him.
"Now, what does he do? He reaches for a gambit. He pulls out an Avalanche, and then he doesn't have to think. He knows, starting from the beginning of that set, that he is going to throw three rocks in a row."
But gambits are not necessarily the sign of the unthinking RPS player. Krueger himself won with a gambit. "I didn't do it over and over again -- just in the final throws of the match," he said.
"I'd noticed that my opponent had thrown so many rocks [in his earlier matches]. So in the final round, I throw a rock, he throws a rock. That's a stalemate. I sensed an Avalanche was coming, that he was sending three rocks my way. What are the odds of him repeating his rock throw? They're higher than me. I actually only threw four rocks in the final. And I was like, you know what? ... I'm going with a Fistful o' Dollars [rock, paper, paper]," he says, without a trace of the hubris you might expect from a world champion.
(lots more at site, free registraton required)
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