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Rock Paper Scissors? Shoot, he's good

No tittering, please. A regional champion, who lives in Largo, will head to Las Vegas for the nationals next month.

By ANNE LINDBERG
Published April 29, 2007

Dan Swiger was at Mugs 'N Jugs with a group of friends when the Bud Light girl asked if he'd like to play a rousing game of Rochambeau.

Swiger, 25, was one of the top four that night and moved to the regional tournament, which he won. His prize was an all-expense-paid trip to Las Vegas to compete for the $50, 000 top prize in the national tournament May 12-13. The finals will be shown later this summer on one of the ESPN channels.

What is Rochambeau, you ask? It's a game just about everyone has played, and is better known by its more common name:

Rock Paper Scissors.

But don't call it a "kids' game" in front of aficionados. They bristle at the thought that Rock Paper Scissors is anything but a competitive sport requiring strategy and fitness rather than mere luck.

"It's absolutely not luck, " said Matti Leshem, of the USA Rock Paper Scissors League. "It's like anything else in life. If you want to be good, you've got to play an hour a day. You've got to commit to the sport."

The sport, he said, requires many skills, like being able to read one's opponent, understand human behavior and "throw" at the last moment. Good players even risk wrist injuries, he said, so they must be fit in order to play.

Then there's the matter of strategy, such as the "urbanus defense, " in which the player intentionally loses in the first round to throw off his opponent.

"It's a very difficult move to pull off, " Leshem said.

Last year's national tournament winner repeatedly threw paper in the final round. "Imagine the guts that took, " Leshem said.

Swiger isn't so sure.

"I never actually considered it a sport, " he said. "Mainly it's luck, I think. ... Some people claim there's a strategy to it, but I'll see."

Swiger, a Largo resident and Pinellas Park firefighter, is a bit amused by his accomplishment, saying he wished he could say he learned the game at his grandfather's knee.

"It would make a good story, " he said.

But other than occasionally playing the game with friends to see who got to ride "shotgun" in the car, Swiger said he has never paid much attention to it.

His entry into the tournament at Mugs 'N Jugs was a "spur-of-the-moment thing" made while sipping water with friends who were drinking Bud Light, the tournament sponsor.

He came in third or fourth of 24 competitors that night, which was good enough to move him to the regionals. His win over 50 contestants there was fortuitous.

He and his girlfriend, Heather Payne, were planning a trip to Las Vegas in June to celebrate the end of his six-month probation with the Pinellas Park Fire Department, where he has worked since Dec. 6.

This way, they still get the trip, but a little earlier than planned. Swiger had to get special permission from Pinellas Park fire Chief Doug Lewis to go because he was still on probation.

Lewis said he was glad to grant leave to Swiger, but was a little stunned when he heard the reason.

"I said, 'What?' " Lewis said. The timing of the request was the only reason Lewis did not think his firefighters were playing a joke on him.

"It was at the end of the shift, " he said. "If it was a joke, it probably would have been earlier in the day."

Leshem, the co-commissioner from the league, said he believes Swiger stands a "very good chance" of winning the tournament.

"Firefighters are very good Rock Paper Scissors players, " Leshem said, adding that they're fit and trained to think quickly.

"He probably plays with the boys in the firehouse, " Leshem said.

Swiger denied that. The closest he has come, he said, was after winning. His fellow firefighters asked him outside to play.

Instead, they dumped water on him.

[Last modified April 28, 2007, 20:13:14]