Rock Paper…What?

In recent weeks, having solved such weighty problems as Covid, politics, and the appropriate boarding weapon for pirates, it is time to discuss a topic with a little more gravitas.  I’m referring, of course, to the game of Rock Paper Scissors.

Having never met a person who does not know how to play the game, I’m not going to waste any time discussing the rules.  If you don’t know how to play, have the person who is helping you read the big words explain it to you.  

I will however, talk about the history of the game.   Quelle surprise!

Depending on where you live, the name of the game varies, as well as the three components used to determine the winner.  In the Western United States, the game is frequently called Rochambeau, after the Count who supposedly played the game during the Revolutionary War.  In reality, the Count never heard of the game, and no one knows exactly how the urban legend began.  

In Japan, the game is jan-ken-pon, which not surprisingly translates out to rock, paper, scissors.  The game is frequently used in soft-porn videos where the loser of each round has to remove an article of clothing.  In the Philippines it is called Jak En Poy and is so popular it is frequently the subject of televised game shows.  Indonesia has a version with slightly different hand signs that translates out as Bear, Hunter, Ninja.  

The earliest written description of the game is about 500 years old, in a Chinese book that dates the game back to 225 BCE.  From China, the game moved to Japan, that through contact with the West, spread the game to Europe, early in the Twentieth Century.  

English newspapers first reported in the 1920’s that the “Teutonic Game” was occasionally used to determine who went first in cricket matches when the referee could not locate a suitable coin to determine who played first.  Within a decade, the game had spread to the United States.

Interestingly, in America, players say that “rock smashes scissors”, while in England the phrase is “rock blunts scissors”.  I’ll leave it to the reader to determine if this indicates anything about the nature of either country.  (I wonder if, in France, the scissors surrender to rock.)

The most important thing to know about the game, however, is how to win.  What most people assume is a game of random chance is actually a game of psychology.  Like poker, it is a game where reading your opponent is the key to winning.  

Or maybe not.  There is a theory floating around that players subconsciously attempt to mimic the play of their opponent.  As the eye catches small movements of the muscles in their opponent’s hand, your brain automatically tries to play the same move—resulting in a tie.  Accordingly, some players suggest that the best strategy is to mimic Luke Skywalker practicing with his lightsaber and just use The Force by playing blindfolded.  Even if you don’t win, you will freak out your opponent.

Assuming that you are not Luke Skywalker, then, if you are playing against a man, you should consider playing paper, as most men choose rock as their first move (presumably because the rock is the most masculine, forceful play).  If you lose, you should remember that winners tend to play the same move twice, so your second play should be whatever would have defeated your opponent’s first move.  If your first move won, your second move should be whatever was not played in the first round.  Subsequent rounds should follow this same pattern.

If you go online, you will find programs that allow you to play against a computer.  The games that use simple programs relying on random choices are impossible to beat, as these programs do not use patterns to anticipate, which means, statistically, you will win roughly as many games as you lose in the long run.  If you play against one of the better programs (those that keep track of your moves and analyze them for patterns), you will lose far more games than you win over the long run, since the human brain is incapable of not establishing a pattern.  In fact, the longer you play against such a program, the more you will lose.

Since a third of the games played should end in a tie, several alternative versions of the rules have been suggested, the most common being the addition of more possible moves.  Sam Kass and Karen Bryla have suggested a version with five possible plays:  Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock.  This version was popularized by the television show The Big Bang Theory.  With five possible moves, only one game in five should end in a tie.  If you search long enough on the internet, you can find versions of the game that use up to 100 possible moves….and no one but a computer could possibly remember which move beats another.

Researchers in Japan have discovered that children can play the game about the time they reach the age of four.  That being the mental age of intelligent chimpanzees, the research project immediately switched its research subjects from children to apes, presumably because they were easier to work with and didn’t require payment.  

According to the latest report by the BBC, the scientists have been successful at getting the chimpanzees to play against a computer (although the computer had to use pictures of chimp hands for the subjects to respond).  Next, the researchers are going to attempt to see if the chimps will play the game with other chimps.

Assuming that the experiment will be successful, I have already written to the scientists with a suggestion on how to extend their experiment.  I think, if the scientists proceed cautiously, they might be able to teach the game to university administrators.

Lest you think all of this is just useless trivia, I would point out to you that the game has been used to settle tied elections, property divisions in divorces, and several civil lawsuits.  Perhaps the most interesting use involved selling the extensive impressionist art collection of Takashi Hashiyama, a wealthy Japanese industrialist.  Both Sotheby’s Holdings and Christie’s International presented impressive proposals to auction off the valuable collection of paintings by such artists as Cézanne, Van Gogh, Matisse, and Picasso.  One of the Picasso paintings was ‘Boulevard de Clichy’ (left).

Unable to choose between the two houses, Hashiyama decided to choose an auction house by letting the two firms play a single round of Rock Paper Scissors.

With a week to select their move, Sotheby’s left the choice to management.  Christie’s, wisely turned to the twin eleven-year-old daughters of its international director.  With millions of dollars in commissions at stake, the girls suggested scissors because, as they said, “Everybody expects you to choose rock.”   

Christie’s won.  I wonder if the girls received a consulting fee.