Pick a hand
Rock, paper or scissors. Press one and both hands come down together – yours on the left, the page’s on the right. Rock blunts scissors, scissors cut paper, paper wraps rock.
The score
Wins, draws and losses are counted under the hands, in that order, and kept on this device – so a game you leave and come back to carries on. Start again puts the score back to nothing.
Is the page cheating?
No. Your browser picks the page’s hand at random the moment you press, with no idea what you picked – it cannot see your click before it decides. Over a long game the three hands come up about a third each, which is exactly what makes the game fair and exactly why nobody can win it reliably.
Against a person it is a different game: people are bad at being random, repeat hands after a win and throw rock first more often than they should. Against a page, there is nothing to read.
Settling something
- Who goes first, who pays, who does the dishes.
- Best of three when one throw is not enough.
- A quick break: play to ten and see who gets there.
- Teaching a child the rules, without needing a second person.
A faster game
How long it takes is the countdown before the hands are shown. Turn it down for a quick series, or off for an instant answer.