The 2005 RPS World Championsips
Saturday Oct. 22nd, 2005
Steam Whistle Brewing
The Roundhouse
255 Bremner Blvd.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Arrived at 10 to 8:00 but had to wait in the rain for 25 minutes before getting in. I did note that 8:15 might be a good sign for the time of my arrival because 8 and 15 are two of the Numbers. My friend Pat came along as my 'pit crew' since I helped him out with his demo-derby last month. Pat didn't know how sensitive my cheap digital camera was in low light, so please excuse some of the blurry or rain specked images. I appreciated Pat's help though! It was lots of fun, and we both had a great time.
Upon registering, I got my number and this spiffy ghost themed age of majority writs band.
The event started with 4 waves in the first round to allow for straglers who arrived late (like me) and not hold back those who arrived early. Each round/wave had 8 players per booth/referee and at the end of the round, the top 2 moved on. You had to win 2 matches to advance. Here is a brief run-down of the competition structure:
- 2 players play best 2/3 throws to decide who wins a game of rock papaer scissors.
- Then they play best 2/3 games to decide who won the match. * You can go out in as little as 6 throws, but most matches take the full 9 throws to win.
- After the 4 waves in the first round, there were 128 qualifiers
- Rounds continued until the winners were determined.
ROUND 1 (wave 3)
My first match was against this guy. He told me later he had shaved for the competition. I told him that I beat him because he shaved off 1/3 the power of his hair. He didn't seem to take it badly though!
My next match was against a guy who said he was the 2003 silver medalist... You can't see it in the pic, but the left arm on his suit is torn off and he was either hiding his left arm in his shirt or he actually only has one arm. Here's his pic from the 2003.
Once I had beat my first two competitors, I was given my Round of 128 Qualifier ID which no one seemed to bother filling out the name on. I had some time to kill before the next round.
ROUND 2
"The Fish of FURY" pictured here beat me. He was then beaten by some 10 year old kid who came all the way here with Team Norway. The norwegian kid went on to the round of 64. I'm not sure where he went out, but he didn't make the finals.
* The norwegian kid with his mom.
Andrew Bergel of Toronto was the eventual winner.
Here is his final throw
Pictures of various teams
Many people competed as teams, complete with costumes. Some of note; "Team Zissou" -of Life Aquatic fame, "Team Paper"* who were by far the largest team all with individual names like "Parchment", "81/2 x 11", or "Creme".
* The members of "Team Paper" only throw paper, so they all got knocked out after the first round.
Pictures of individual competitors and some "street" rps.
One interetsing addition that I hadn't seen at the 2003 competition was "Street RPS". Competitors would recieve fake money for each round they competed in, and then gamble that cash with other competitors without the aid of a referee. The person who accumulated the most fake cash won $1000 at the end of the night. I avoided street RPS while i was still competeing since any win in a street game was one less win in the competetion. Once I was out, we came across a number of SA team mebers (from the forum SomethingAwful.com). I told them I had a Fark.com account rather than an SA account and we decided to play for all $14 of my fake cash in a single 2/3 game. I lost on the third throw.
Congratulations to ruxpin_exe from the SA forums for upholding the honour of SA and my apologies to Fark for letting them down.
Pix of Chix
At some point, Pat degenrated to just getting pictures of the women at the event. (YES, there were women there!). Here are some of the "Girls of RPS"
That's it!
My first match was against this guy. He told me later he had shaved for the competition. I told him that I beat him because he shaved off 1/3 the power of his hair. He didn't seem to take it badly though!
My next match was against a guy who said he was the 2003 silver medalist... You can't see it in the pic, but the left arm on his suit is torn off and he was either hiding his left arm in his shirt or he actually only has one arm. Here's his pic from the 2003.
"The Fish of FURY" pictured here beat me. He was then beaten by some 10 year old kid who came all the way here with Team Norway. The norwegian kid went on to the round of 64. I'm not sure where he went out, but he didn't make the finals.
