Rock paper scissors is an old game.

It isn't something silly, some American high school are made up in the 1900s, as I personally would have guessed.

In fact, its earliest forms possibly date back to 200 BC in ancient China.

The first definite mention of the game, however, is as late as the 1600s.

So take that 200 BC claim with an 800-year grain of salt.

Either way, we're looking at an old, simple game that spread from China to Japan and then to the rest of the world.

It's easy to learn.

It's a fair game in that it's random,

although some players do use some psychological strategy, and the rules are simple. There are three

moves, each of which beats one of the other moves and loses to the other. It's a game that has

perfect balance, and today, all over the world, people use this little game to decide who's going to take

out the trash, who's going to get the last piece of chocolate, and who's going to give the

first presentation in class.

One of my friends designs card games in their spare time, you know, Magic the Gathering

style games, and he told me that rock paper scissors underlies a lot

of card games, board games, and video games. The whole A beats B, B, B, C, and C beats A is an

extremely useful pattern when you want to add a random but fair base to a more complicated game.

This ancient game has been played possibly for thousands of years, all over the globe,

and it lays a foundation for many of our current more complex games.

It sounds silly, since it's so simple, but one could legitimately argue it is one of the greatest games of all time.

And today, I'm going to tell you about the greatest game of rock paper scissors ever played.

The stakes are high, and while it has winners and losers, it is never-ending. It is a game that decides

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