by Rick Reilly
I saw it happen right before my eyes. Tax Cut’s partner, the Reverend, was playing another Philly guy, a biblically bearded guy named Rhymes with Sausage. Rhymes with Sausage got off to an early 3–0 lead, but then the Reverend came stomping back. At one point—as they were furiously throwing—the Reverend actually called four straight throws of Sausage’s. Just absolutely nailed what he was going to throw. He’d holler them out as they were coming. He’d yell, “One, two, three, Paper!” and there, magically, would be Paper on Sausage’s right arm. Then, “One, two, three, Rock!” And there was Rock. Sausage was powerless. The guy was inside his cranium. Sausage looked like a guy who’d just been told an earwig is eating through his brain. Four in a row! The Rev won 10–7 and $10, Canadian. Telling you, the Reverend is unholy.
He asked if I wanted to try it. I started to reach for my wallet when I got a less-than-gentle poke in the ribs from TLC. I then declined. Smart girl.
She proved that again the next day during my pre-championship practice session (Note: Practice rounds do not count in one’s personal record). We’d never played each other before. She’d done no research and yet she beat me about thirty out of forty. It was quite depressing. Her strategy? “I don’t think,” she said. “My mind is clear. I just go totally random.”
“But an MIT mathematician says that humans are incapable of random th—”
“Totally random,” she insisted.
The next night, the doors at the Steam Whistle Brewery opened to reveal what appeared to be a Star Wars convention crossed with a Hooters tryout.
It makes no sense, but, somehow, RPS draws crazy-hot women. Most of the RPS guys were skinny and pale and geekier than Pocket Protector Club. But they all had the right attitude for the thing, which was, drink hard, play hard, be ironic.
One guy was wearing a T-shirt that read: “I Rocked Your Mom.” One was wearing a jean jacket with the right sleeve cut off at the bicep. His throwing arm, I guessed. One girl’s shirt said: “Paper Is the New Rock.” Another woman had on a tiara made of scissors. There was even a guy dressed like Edward Scissorhands. I was waiting for Rocky to show up. Helluva matchup.
Off to the left an entire team was doing warm-up exercises. I kid you not. Their captain was leading them through Rock lunges. Who knew?
I signed in and was given a number to pin to my shirt, the bottom of which was a ready-to-tear-off strip that said: “Currently Undefeated.” After the TLC thrashing, I did not have much hope that it would remain attached long.
Over 700 combatants would be competing, single elimination, $10,000 for first place, $1,500 for second, and $500 for third, with an additional $1,000 to the winner of the “street wars” competition. Each player was given ten “street bucks” with which to gamble against each other between matches. These were the “street wars.” Eventually, by the end of the night, somebody would have all of them, and the grand. I was thinking I should just go hand my street bucks to the Reverend now and eliminate the middlemen.
Round One
I went to Table N to find the seven others whom I would engage in hand-to-hand combat. Round One is actually two stages of matches, which meant that only two of the eight would move on to Round Two. One of the guys had on a big plastic-hair Johnny Bravo headpiece and was already well into replacing most of his blood with vodka. He was on Team Shocker. “We’re just a bunch of idiots,” said their coach. “Except him. He’s an idiot, too, but he’s really good.”
Suddenly, the thing started and—I know this is hard to believe—I got squadrons of butterflies. “You think you won’t,” Mister Iz had warned. “But when it’s you standing across from your opponent and the ref is there and all the people are surrounding you, it’s scary!”
That’s exactly what I thought, except when I stood across from my opponent I noticed he was not standing. He was sitting in a wheelchair.
He had long hair, a green T-shirt, and was drinking a Steam Whistle. His name was Russell Kinkelaar, twenty-eight, from Lindsay, Canada. He’d been in the chair since he was four, when a drunk driver hit him and his uncle. The uncle and the drunk died and Russell has been paralyzed from the waist down ever since.
Nice. If I lost, I was out. If I won, I’d have beaten some poor uncle-less guy in a wheelchair.
Now I was perspiring at the hairline. In the distance I could hear people doing cheers at some other table. And instead of concentrating on my first throw, I kept thinking, “What in hell does a Rock Paper Scissors cheer sound like?”
Fingers, Knuckles
Cuticle, Nail!
Our Phalanges
Never Fail!
There was a drunk guy standing next to me, part of my pool. “You nervous?” I asked.
“Nah,” he slurred. “I come for the dollar beers. I drove all night, eight hours from New York, just to come to this.”
I stared at him. “Uh, the beers are five bucks.”
He looked at me like I’d told him he was drinking turpentine. Then he looked at his beer. “Dick nipples!” he said.
The referee called Russell and me forward. Thirty people gathered around to watch, and exactly one of them was rooting for me—TLC. And she was caving a little. “Well, wouldn’t it be nice if he won?” she whispered. The ref drew us together. I sort of hunched over to be more down to his level. I heard somebody tsk-tsk. I guess this makes me an ass.
Nonetheless, I stuck with my plan, playing the rube. I asked the ref a few dumb questions. One was, “Is it best out of ten?” The other seven looked at me judgmentally. Then I threw Scissors, which cut his Paper nicely. The crowd groaned like I’d just put a kitty in a blender. I don’t remember what the hell I threw after that, but I beat him in the first game, two out of three. Then he beat me two out of three. The crowd roared their approval. All tied. He spun his chair out away from me to steel himself (sorry—figure of speech) and then back toward me. For the rubber game, I started with Paper, figuring wheelchair or no wheelchair, guys never open with Scissors with so many people watching, and I was right. My Paper clobbered his Rock. Then I threw Rock, for no reason at all—and he threw scissors and I was through Round One-A.
Very, very light applause and a few scattered boos. Russell took it well. “I tried to change it up in the first round,” he admitted, “but nothing worked. Then you just beat me bad in that last game.”
He looked so sad, I realized even I felt bad about beating him. But not as much as to not remind you that my personal record was now 3–1.
Right after us, the drunk guy from New York lost his first game and got so pissed he ripped off his entire bib. Safety pins went flying, except for one of them, which bent and poked him in the chest. And that’s when I said, “Uh, it’s best two out of three. You haven’t lost yet.”
He looked at me and looked at his crumpled bib and said, “Dick nipples!” And then he lost the next game, too.
Now there were four of us. I was first up, except my opponent—a tall, dark-haired guy in a button-down shirt—was on his cell phone. It was me and the ref and the crowd waiting for the guy to finish up. “OK, OK!” the guy was saying into his phone. “OK! Extra large! What? I don’t know! Whatever color they have!”
The ref said, “Sir, you must hang up now or you will forfeit.”
Guy on the phone: “I don’t know! A hundred percent cotton! I gotta go!”
The ref started the game instantly and the guy was completely flummoxed and I beat him 2–1 in the first game and 2–0 in the second. It was over in less than ninety seconds. I used mostly Paper and Scissors. He was defaulting big-time to Rock. I was through to Round Two.
(4–1.)
“Dammit!” he said, looking at his phone. Turns out he was a lawyer named Matt Miller, and he had a strategy all ready to go, but the phone call screwed up his mind and he was playing before he could remember what his plan was. Who was on the other end? “My stupid friend telling me to get him a T-shirt. Threw me all off!”
But Miller still went over and bought him a T-shirt,
throwing the $20 down disgustedly. That’s a friend.
The woman impossible not to notice in the hall wore a giant pink beehive hairdo. It looked like a swath of cotton candy on top of her head and tangled up in it was a pair of scissors and a few pieces of paper. No rocks, though. Perhaps rocks sink in finely spun confectionary. Her name was Cody Bennett and her boyfriend finished fourth the year before. “He’s been training me for thirteen months out of a book,” said Cody, who was already half schnoozled. “If I win, I’m going to buy him a pair of cowboy boots.” And if her boyfriend wins, maybe he’d buy her a 100-gallon hat.
Round Two
RPS bravado is wonderful to watch. One time, a guy skinny as a parking meter was about to face off against a rather buff opponent when he called “time out” and made a big deal of taking off his sweater, then rolling up the sleeve on his right arm. I mean, it was done with panache. Painstakingly, as we all watched, he got every wrinkle out. Finally, he was ready to go again and then—wait for it—threw with his left! And won! Do you love it?
One scruffy-faced guy had his right arm in a sling. Around him, teammates kept patting him on the back and saying, “It’s OK. We understand. An injury is an injury, and if you have to withdraw, then that’s the way it goes.” The guy looked depressed and mopey, until suddenly he spun around toward his opponent, pulled his arm out of the sling, and pronounced, “Screw it! I’m going to play!” It was like the New York Knicks’ Willis Reed coming out for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals despite brutal injury, except, of course, this guy was faking. Still, it energized his team—until he lost two out of three.
On the floor, I made the mistake of playing some street wars games and immediately lost both of them, cutting my ten bucks down to four. (Personal record 4–3.) That was bad ju-ju. I made my way to my next table to find seven more people intent on taking my $10,000. This time, my opponent was a tatted-up, pierced-out, stringy-haired twenty-five-year-old cook named Jessica, who didn’t want to give her last name. Perhaps she was on the lam. “I’ve been practicing with my boyfriend for three months,” she said. “But tonight, I’m really nervous and my legs start shaking and I can’t remember what I’m supposed to throw. But everything has been working, so …”
I was thinking of using mostly Rock against her because she seemed pretty high and high women tend to default to Scissors. Unless, of course, she was playing the rube with me just as I’d played it against the poor guy in the wheelchair. But that’s when a frizzy-haired young guy with a “Ba-Rock O’Bombers” T-shirt sidled up to me and whispered, “Dude, our buddy lost to her, she throws nothing but Rock! She must’ve thrown rock eighty percent of the time! She’s terrible, dude. Throw Paper!”
Inside information! I decided to use it. My first throw was Paper. Hers was Scissors. I was already down one throw. I glared at Frizzy Guy. He winked an it’s-gonna-work! My second throw was again Paper. Hers was again Scissors. Down one game already. I grabbed my haircut. What an idiot! The second game I threw Rock on the first throw and we tied. Then I threw Scissors, figuring it was time for her to finally throw some Paper. Imagine my surprise to see her Rock again. Down one throw already. I thought: No way she throws three straight Rocks, right? Who does that? This crazy spacey girl who tans by 20-watt bulbs, that’s who. I threw Paper and there was her Rock again. Win for the good guys. Frizzy Guy smiled a see-what-I-mean? at me. I decided maybe he knew what he was talking about. Here came the rubber throw. Two Scissors. Tie. Would she go back to Rock again? Yes, yes, she would, I thought. She’s that high. I threw Paper. And what did she throw? Scissors.
Dick nipples!
Game over. Match over. Tournament over for Our Hero. The ref leaned over and unceremoniously zipped off my “Currently Undefeated” strip. It was like in the Civil War, when the colonel rips off your epaulets and sends you out of the fort horseless.
(Personal record: 4–4.)
I was Steamed, so I went over to cool it down with a cold Whistle and who was there but Graham Walker, the president of the World RPS Society, the grand poobah of the finger martial arts. I told him what happened. His eyes got huge. “You idiot! You got conned!” he said. “It’s the oldest con in the world. You got played by the second.”
“The second?” I said.
“Yeah, she probably didn’t throw Rock at all the first round. The guy was in cahoots with her. He’s the second. So he tells you to throw Paper when he knows all she throws is Scissors.”
I felt like Bruce Willis at the end of The Sixth Sense. Everybody knew I was a dead man except me. I stomped off looking for Frizzy Guy. When I found him, I took him by the shirt button and snarled, “Did you con me?”
“No!” he said. “I swear on my mother’s grave!”
I didn’t believe him. There was something in his eyes.
“I mean,” he said, “we DO run a two-man con on the floor.”
“What’s a two-man con?”
Turns out a two-man con is when Guy No. 1 is throwing against the mark, when the “second” strolls up, pretends he doesn’t know Guy No. 1, and says, “Hey, wanna play a three-way?” In a three-way, all three players throw and nobody wins a point until somebody cleanly beats both the other two. So if Guy No. 1 throws Paper and the other two throw Rock, that’s a point for Guy No. 1. The con is that the two buddies have a pattern all worked out so that they know exactly what each is going to throw. They keep it close, lose a few, but when the money gets big, Guy No. 1 eventually wins all the money, which he splits later with the “second.”
So, sure they con people, just, you know, not me.
Round Three
The coat-and-tie Norwegian champ was crying. Literally crying. He had to bury his head in his coach’s blazer. Turns out champions of national federations—Norway, Sweden, Australia—get a free pass into the third round. And he got one and was still gone after one (1) match.
“Pretty emotional, huh?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” he sniffed. “We aimed for three players to finish in the top sixteen this year. And so you see we have placed no one now. I am so sad for myself and my teammates and my country.”
I could only hope the Norwegian federation brought the grief counselor.
On the floor, the atmosphere was blazing. There were dozens and dozens of street games going on. Huge stacks of street bucks were being held in the air while men in ninja hoods fought guys in sombreros with actual chips in the brims and salsa in the centers. And behind them, I noticed Johnny Bravo taking on somebody while his teammates chanted “Not your fault!” over and over.
“What’s it mean?” I asked one of them.
“It means, ‘It’s not your fault when you lose to Johnny Bravo,’” the guy said. “He’s just that good.”
Brutal.
We decided we better get started winning the $1,000 street war game. TLC wanted to get rid of her street bucks as too many guys were hitting on her under the guise of “Wanna throw down?” So she gave her ten to me, which gave me fourteen.
I immediately went out and lost a match to a college girl (4–5). Now I had ten. I bet seven against a woman who looked nervous. I won (5-5). Now I had seventeen. Bet it all against a very drunk man and won again (6–5). Now had thirty-four. Bet it all against a very small girl in rectangle glasses and lost on rock (6–6). Dead broke.
More hopes dashed on the knuckles of my lame fingers.
The street wars winner would wind up being a complete novice named Sara Harris, twenty-two, who lost all ten of her street bucks, then found eight on the floor and began betting her entire wad every time. “I never play,” she admitted. “I’m not even entered in this! I was just trying to go home. I’ve got a big tax test tomorrow [at Toronto University]. But I couldn’t lose!” She unknowingly beat some of the great hustlers in the country, including the Reverend, who lost a stack higher than his arm to her. I kept thinking of Pete Lovering and his “childlike minds.” And what was her brilliant strategy? “I had no strategy at all!” she giggled. “I didn’t think
about anything!”
I looked at TLC when she said that. TLC looked at me knowingly. Perhaps RPS is a zen koan.
Q: What is the best strategy of all?
A: Nothing.
Round of 16
Among the people you’d know in the Sweet 16 were: Johnny Bravo, Cody (the pink-bouffant hair lady), one of the guys wearing chips-and-dip on his head, and the one-sleeved jean jacket guy.
The crowd was in a frenzy. The MC hollered, “The pressure is intense! There’s not a dry mouth up here! And if somebody would bring me a beer that would be great!” But nobody did.
All in all, women kicked booty. Perhaps it’s a hunch thing. They represented only a fourth of the original 700 and yet had three of the final four, with only Johnny Bravo representing the “good-ol’-Rock” gender. He faced Cody, the pink-bouffant lady, and lost to her, despite all his friends hollering “Not your fault!” Well, it was somebody’s.
The Final
The Throw for the Dough came down to pink-bouffant Cody vs. a tiny thirty-one-year-old woman in librarian glasses and a checked sweater named Monica Martinez, a jewelry store owner from Toronto. She didn’t even know she was going to enter the championship until the morning before. “She’s just really, really competitive,” her husband, Daniel Angel, said as he wrung his hands. “She started reading about it on the Internet yesterday. To tell you the truth, I’m not surprised she’s in the finals. In fact, I’d have been in for a lousy night if she hadn’t done well. She’s that competitive. She’s like this in every game: Euchre, Taboo, Cranium, Scrabble.”
