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Rock Paper Scissors
online with a friend

The oldest tiebreaker in the world, settled online. Create a room, send your friend the link, and throw at the same time — no accounts, no downloads, no waiting.

▶ Play Rock Paper ScissorsFree · no signup · just share a link

How to play
  1. Both players choose at the same time: rock, paper, or scissors. Neither of you can see the other's pick until you've both locked it in.
  2. Rock crushes scissors. Scissors cut paper. Paper covers rock. Same pick on both sides is a tie and the round replays.
  3. Pick how long the match runs — a single round, or best of 3, 5, 7 or 9. The first player to win the majority takes the match.

Strategy & tips
  • People are not random. Across recorded competitive games, rock is thrown roughly 35% of the time, scissors roughly 35%, and paper only about 30%. Against a stranger, opening with paper gives you a small statistical edge.
  • Winners repeat, losers switch. A player who just won with rock will often throw rock again. A player who just lost tends to move to the gesture that would have beaten them.
  • Nobody throws the same move three times. After two scissors in a row, most players feel obliged to change. Expect rock or paper — and paper covers both.
  • The only unbeatable strategy is genuine randomness. Humans are famously bad at it, so decide your throw before you look at your opponent, not while you're reading them.

Where it comes from

Rock Paper Scissors is far older than the schoolyard. Its ancestor sansukumi-ken was played in Japan centuries ago, and versions of hand-gesture games go back to Han-dynasty China. The three-way balance is the whole point: no gesture is strongest, so the game is a pure contest of reading the other person.