Don’t tuck your thumb when you throw rock. You may telegraph your move, and a loose fist with the thumb inside can be mistaken for paper.
Keep your scissors vertical. Laying your fingers flat looks too much like paper.
Keep your fingers touching when you play paper. If you spread them out, people might accuse you of playing scissors. You can remember all of this with the phrase, rock breaks scissors, scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock.
Rock, paper, scissors is normally only played with two people, but you can play with up to 3 people if you’d like.
The tapping on your nondominant hand helps you and your opponent stay synchronized. Many players will include a fourth count, “shoot,” where players throw their choice out at the same time. This is totally optional, but discuss whether you’re going on “shoot” or “scissors” ahead of time.
Both players must throw at the same time. If one player delays, the result isn’t trustworthy, restart the game.
If both players throw the same object, it’s a tie. In this situation, simply play again. Continue doing this until there is a clear winner. Many people choose to do “best of 3” or “best of 5” since rock paper scissors is such a quick and easy game to play. If you play with more than 2 players, continue playing rounds until there’s one player left standing.
Rock, Paper, Scissors is better than other games of chance, like drawing straws or flipping a coin, because there’s an element of control involved. Both players must be willing to accept whatever the outcome may be!
If you can’t find an existing group or tournament, start one of your own. Since you don’t need any special qualifications to enter, anyone has a fair shot at winning!
