A completely fair game of chance, or an opportunity for those with an edge in human psychology to gain an advantage? Martin Fone looks at the enduringly simple game of rock, paper, scissors. A game of rock, paper, scissors — or scissors, paper, stone, if you prefer — is an acknowledged way of settling a friendly dispute, often seen as a more sophisticated alternative to tossing a coin. It appears a deceptively simple game, two players facing each other and simultaneously making one of three hand gestures, a closed fist representing ‘rock’, a flat hand ‘paper’ and a fist with the index and middle fingers extended ‘scissors’.
The player selecting rock will win if their opponent has chosen scissors but will lose to paper. Scissors will beat paper and if the players make the same selection, the game will be drawn. Citing a reference in a 16 th century book by Xie Zhaozhi, the World Rock Paper Scissors Association trace RPS’s origins to a game called shoushiling or ‘hand command’ played during the Chinese Han Dynasty (206BC to 220AD).
By the 17 th century, a version of the game called mushi-ken had reached Japan where the thumb represented a frog, the little finger a slug, and the index finger a snake. The slug triumphed over the frog but lost to the snake while the frog beat the snake. The direct forerunner of rock, paper, scissors is Janken, a Japanese game, which used the now familiar gestures and grew increasingly popular in the 19 th century.
In a Malays.
