I want to talk to you today about a really cool game called rock, paper, scissors. First of all, I want to tell you how to play it and then afterwards, I'd like to tell you a bit about its history.
The rules are really simple, and to play it, all you need are your hands. Before you start, you have to know the three positions you can make with your hand.
The positions
The first position is the rock - where you bring all your fingers together to make a fist. You know, like people do sometimes when they're angry.
The second position is paper - just put your hand out flat with your fingers all together. Like a piece of paper.
And the third position is scissors. Just make two of your fingers – the first and second fingers – into a V shape, like a pair of scissors.
So there you go: rock, paper and scissors.
How do you play?
Well, both players – it's a two-player game – put one hand behind their back. One of the players counts to three – one, two, three – and then, at the same time, both players bring out their hand in one of the positions, as rock, paper or scissors. (You're not allowed to change your position when you see the other person's hand.) Then you look to see who's won.
Who's the winner?
Rock defeats scissors because a rock can damage scissors – like, if you hit scissors with a rock, and then the scissors aren't sharp and they can't cut any more.
Scissors defeats paper because they can cut it, of course.
Paper defeats rock because you can cover a rock with paper. I think that's the reason.
So, for example, if I have rock and you have scissors, I win a point. But if I have rock and you have paper, you win the point. If we have the same – no one wins, and we have to do it again.
So, you decide how many points you are going to play to, and the first player to get that number of points is the winner.
The history of the game
So now I'd just like to tell you a bit about the history of the game. It was invented around 2,000 years ago in Asia. Over time, many countries developed a version of the game. There was an early version in Japan called Mushi-ken. Instead of rock, paper and scissors, this game used a frog, which was shown by the thumb, a snail, which was shown by the little finger, and a snake, which was shown by the first finger, the one next to the thumb (or the index finger, if you want to use its proper name).
The snake defeats the frog, the frog defeats the snail and the snail defeats the snake – though I've no idea why.
In the early 20th century, rock, paper, scissors became popular in Europe and then in the US. Today, there are even rock, paper, scissors world championships every year to find out who is the best player on the planet.
OK, that's it – thanks for listening to my talk on the game rock, paper, scissors.
