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Rock Paper Scissors World Championships

Rock Paper Scissors is a playground game used to break stalemates and determine teams. This game, which is based mostly on luck, is not just for school kids, and now even has a world championships. The 2005 RPS World Championships was again held in Toronto Canada, and involved 495 competitors from 27 U.S. States, Norway, Northern Ireland, Cayman Islands, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada. The winner received $7,000 canadian dollars, second place received $1,500 and third $500.

Rules

The players count together to 3 counts, most commonly either using the name of the game (e.g. Rock! Paper! Scissors! or Ro! Sham! Bo!) or simply numbers. At the end of the third count, the players simultaneously change their fists into any of three "objects", which they then "throw" by extending it towards their opponent. The three objects are 'paper', 'scissors' and 'rock'. The objective is to defeat the opponent by selecting a weapon which defeats their choice under the following rules:

• Rock (a clenched fist): wins against Scissors (break them), loses to Paper (gets wrapped up) and stalemates against itself
  
• Paper (all fingers extended, palm facing downwards, upwards, or sideways) wins against Rock (wraps it), loses to Scissors (gets cut) and stalemates against itself
  
• Scissors (forefinger and middle finger extended and separated into a "V" shape) wins against Paper (cuts it), loses to Rock (gets smashed) and stalemates against itself.

In International competition, the weapon is thrown on the fourth count ("1 ... 2 ... 3 ... THROW"). This is called "International Style." In "American Style," the throw comes on the third count ("1 ... 2 ... THROW"). Typically, the game is played in a "best 2 out of 3" match.

Results

The table lists the winners of the World Championship since 2002