Rock paper scissors (also known by several other names and word orders) is an intransitive hand game, usually played between two people, in which each player simultaneously forms one of three shapes with an outstretched hand. These shapes are "rock" (a closed fist: ✊), "paper" (a flat hand: ✋), and "scissors" (a fist with the index finger and middle finger extended, forming a V: ✌️). The earliest form of a "rock paper scissors"-style game originated in China and was subsequently imported into Japan, where it reached its modern standardized form, before being spread throughout the world in the early 20th century.
A simultaneous, zero-sum game, it has three possible outcomes: a draw, a win, or a loss. A player who decides to play rock will beat another player who chooses scissors ("rock crushes scissors" or "breaks scissors" or sometimes "blunts scissors"), but will lose to one who has played paper ("paper covers rock"); a play of paper will lose to a play of scissors ("scissors cuts paper"). If both players choose the same shape, the game is tied, but is usually replayed until there is a winner.
Rock paper scissors is often used as a fair method of choosing between two options, similar to coin flipping, drawing straws, or throwing dice in order to settle a dispute or make an unbiased group decision. Unlike truly random selection methods, however, rock paper scissors can be played with some degree of skill by recognizing and exploiting non-random behavior in opponents.
Names The modern game is known by several other names such as Rochambeau, Roshambo, Ro-sham-bo, Bato Bato Pik, and Jan-ken-pon. While the game's name is a list of three items, different countries often have the list in a different order.
In North America and the United Kingdom, it is known as "rock, paper, scissors" or "scissors, paper, stone". Additionally, there are records of the game being referred to as "Rock, scissors, paper" in North America, dating to the early to mid 1900s. If this name is chanted while actually playing the game, it might be followed by an exclamation of "shoot" at the moment when the players are to reveal their choice (i.e. "Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!").
In Australia; it is referred to as "scissors, paper, rock" in New South Wales, "rock, paper, scissors" in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, and "paper, scissors, rock" in Queensland.
In New Zealand, the most common name in English is "paper, scissors, rock". In Māori, it is known as ().
Etymology The name "rock paper scissors" is simply a translation of the Japanese words for the three gestures involved in the game, though the Japanese name for the game is different.
The name Roshambo or Rochambeau has been claimed to refer to Count Rochambeau, who allegedly played the game during the American Revolutionary War. The legend that he played the game is apocryphal, as all evidence points to the game being brought to the United States later than 1910; if this name has anything to do with him it is for some other reason. It is unclear why this name became associated with the game, with hypotheses ranging from a slight phonetic similarity with the Japanese name jan-ken-pon, to the presence of a statue of Rochambeau in a neighborhood of Washington, DC.
Gameplay
The players may start by counting to three aloud, or by speaking the name of the game (e.g. "Rock! Paper! Scissors!"), raising one hand in a fist and swinging it down with each syllable onto their other hand (or in a less common variant, holding it behind their back). They then "throw" or "shoot" by extending their selected sign towards their opponent on what would have been the fourth count, often saying the word "shoot" while doing so.
Variations include a version where players throw immediately on the third count (thus throwing on the count of "Scissors!"), a version including five counts rather than four ("Rock! Paper! Scissors! Says! Shoot!"), and a version where players say "Scissors! Paper! Rock!", and a version where players shake their hands three times before "throwing".
History Origins The first known mention of the game was in the book by the Ming-dynasty writer ( 1600), who wrote that the game dated back to the time of the Han dynasty, where it was played by warlords. In the book, the game was called shoushiling. Li Rihua's book Note of Liuyanzhai also mentions this game, calling it shoushiling (t. 手勢令; s. 手势令), huozhitou (t. 豁指頭; s. 豁指头), or huaquan (划拳).
From China the game was brought to Japan. Throughout Japanese history there are frequent references to sansukumi-ken, meaning ken (fist) games "of the three who are afraid of one another" (i.e. A beats B, B beats C, and C beats A).
The earliest sansukumi-ken in Japan was apparently mushi-ken (虫拳), a version imported directly from China. In mushi-ken the "frog" (represented by the thumb) triumphs over the "slug" (represented by the little finger), which, in turn prevails over the "snake" (represented by the index finger), which triumphs over the "frog". (The Chinese and Japanese versions differ in the animals represented; in adopting the game, the Chinese characters for the venomous centipede (蜈蜙) were apparently confused with the characters for the slug (蛞蝓)).
The most popular sansukumi-ken game in Japan was kitsune-ken (狐拳). In this game, a fox (狐), often attributed supernatural powers in Japanese folklore, defeats the village head, the village head (庄屋) defeats the hunter, and the hunter (猟師) defeats the fox. Kitsune-ken, unlike mushi-ken or rock–paper–scissors, requires gestures with both hands.
Today, the best-known sansukumi-ken is called , which is a variation of the Chinese games introduced in the 17th century. Jan-ken uses the rock, paper, and scissors signs and is the direct source of the modern version of rock paper scissors. Hand-games using gestures to represent the three conflicting elements of rock, paper, and scissors have been most common since the modern version of the game was created in the late 19th century, between the Edo and Meiji periods.
Spread beyond East Asia By the early 20th century, rock paper scissors had spread beyond East Asia, especially through increased Japanese contact with the west. Its English-language name is therefore taken from a translation of the names of the three Japanese hand-gestures for rock, paper and scissors; elsewhere in East Asia the open-palm gesture represents "cloth" rather than "paper". The shape of the scissors is also adopted from the Japanese style.
A 1921 article about cricket in the Sydney Morning Herald described "stone, scissors, and paper" as a "Teutonic method of drawing lots", which the writer "came across when travelling on the Continent once". Another article, from the same year, the Washington Herald described it as a method of "Chinese gambling". In Britain in 1924 it was described in a letter to The Times as a hand game, possibly of Mediterranean origin, called "zhot".After the Rome correspondent of a British paper described the traditional Italian hand-game of morra, which has some similarities to rock paper scissors, a brief correspondence began on the subject. One contributor described a game he had seen played in Mediterranean ports, called 'zot' or 'zhot', which was clearly identical with the modern Rock paper scissors": 'In this game the closed fist represents a stone, the open hand with fingers outstretched paper, and the closed fist with two fingers outstretched scissors...The players stand facing one another, and commence playing simultaneously by raising and lowering the right arm three times rapidly, coming to rest with the fist in any of the three above-mentioned positions. If you keep your fist closed and your opponent flings open his hand then you lose, as paper wraps up stones, and so on.' A reader then wrote in to say that the game "zhot" referred to was evidently Jan-ken-pon, which she had often seen played throughout Japan. Although at this date the game appears to have been new enough to British readers to need explaining, the appearance by 1927 of Gerard Fairlies popular thriller novel with the title Scissors Cut Paper,Gerard Fairlie, Scissors Cuts Paper, Hodder and Stoughton, (1927) followed by Fairlie's Stone Blunts Scissors (1929), suggests it quickly became popular.
The game is referred to in two of Hildegard G. Frey's novels in the Campfire Girls series: The Campfire Girls Go Motoring (1916)Hildegard G. Frey, The Campfire Girls Go Motoring, A. L. Burt Company, (1916) and The Campfire Girls' Larks and Pranks (1917),Hildegard G. Frey, The Campfire Girls Larks and Pranks, A. L. Burt Company, (1917) which suggests that it was known in America at least that early. The first passage where it appears says "In order that no feelings might be involved in any way over which car we other girls traveled in, Nyoda, Solomon-like, proposed that she and Gladys play 'John Kempo' for us. (That isn't spelled right, but no matter.)" There is no explanation in any of the places where it is referenced of what the game actually is. This suggests that the author at least believed that the game was well known enough in America that her readers would understand the reference.
In 1927 La Vie au patronage : organe catholique des œuvres de jeunesse, a children's magazine in France, described it in detail, referring to it as a "jeu japonais" ("Japanese game"). Its French name, "Chi-fou-mi", is based on the Old Japanese words for "one, two, three" ("hi, fu, mi").
A 1932 New York Times article on the Tokyo rush hour describes the rules of the game for the benefit of American readers, suggesting it was not at that time widely known in the U.S.'New York Times', May 22, 1932 - The New York Times Magazine, article by Marion May Dilts: "COMMUTING WITH TOKYO'S SUBURBANITES; Their Morning Ritual Is Characteristically Japanese, but In Their Mode of Travel There Is Western Technique" Likewise, the trick-taking card game "Jan-Ken-Po", first published in 1934, describes the rules of the hand-game without mentioning any American game along the lines of "rock paper scissors". The 1933 edition of the Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia described it as a common method of settling disputes between children in its article on Japan; the name was given as "John Kem Po" and the article pointedly asserted, "This is such a good way of deciding an argument that American boys and girls might like to practice it too."Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, 1933, Volume 7, p. 194. F. E. Compton & Company, Chicago
Strategies
It is impossible to gain an advantage over an opponent that chooses their move uniformly at random. However, it is possible to gain a significant advantage over a non-random player by predicting their move, which can be done by exploiting psychological effects or by analyzing statistical patterns of their past behavior. As a result, there have been programming competitions for algorithms that play rock paper scissors.
During tournaments, players often prepare their sequence of three gestures prior to the tournament's commencement.Steve Vockrodt, "Student rivals throw down at rock, paper, scissors tournament" , Lawrence Journal-World, 8 April 2007. Retrieved 13 April 2007.Michael Y. Park, "Rock, Paper, Scissors, the Sport", Fox News, 20 March 2006. Retrieved 13 April 2007. Some tournament players employ tactics to confuse or trick the other player into making an illegal move, resulting in a loss. One such tactic is to shout the name of one move before throwing another, in order to misdirect and confuse their opponent.