Well, the reigning Champ can cross that one off his RPS bucket list.  He arrived just in time to play and proceeded to make quick work of several highly regarded players (including Bront Jronsdstin, Loomer and Frankie 13) on his way to the finals.  Once there he took down Dre from 10th Street, a former member of the now disbanded Sallycats.  It was Dre from 10th Street’s first championship match and she may have been a little nervous.  It wasn’t a terribly close match, but it wasn’t blowout either.  Dre held her own against the Champ and many who witnessed her performance until the finals fully expect to see her back in the finals soon.

Just before that, Paper Tiger learned that he had won the Street RPS tourney as well.  So it was a pretty dominating night of RPS for Paper Tiger, the likes of which we hadn’t seen since the first tournament of the season.  The money was pretty evenly distributed and the Champ beat everyone with $93.  Jayne Doe came closest with $73.

So the Champ got 10 points on the night, which he doesn’t really need since he’s going to be the #1 seed this year anyway.  It does get him a bit closer to the points leader on the season (that’s Dick Nasty).

It was the first appearance in a final match for 127 Hours, who is currently in the lead for Rookie of the Year honors.  But this was not the first finals this season for Rock Hard, who won at Frank’s in week 1 and lost in the finals just the night before at El Bar vs Speedwagoner One Armed Scissor.

The final match did not disappoint.  Rock Hard jumped out to a quick 2 match to 0 lead, but 127 Hours stopped the bleeding long enough to require Rock Hard go on to a 5th and final set.  That one started with a quick point for Rock Hard and just when everyone thought 127 Hours was going to tie it up…she didn’t.  Rock Hard won a hard fought match and got his 2nd win at Dirty Frank’s this year.  Rock Hard has played 5 times this year and has made the finals in 3 of them.  Not only that, but the Blackout Motherf*ckers have won 3 out of 5 at Dirty Franks and it would have been 4 out of 5 if Frankie 13 could have finished off Paper Chase a few weeks ago.

Sir Faust (at left, wearing hat) was the best dressed guy in the house and his sharp dressed man-ness must have really distracted all the people who played him at Street RPS (dOGulas included) because he won by a lot.

This is how it seems to be going: Blackouts win tournament, Speedwagon wins Street.  Speedwagon wins tournament, Blackouts win street.  It’s keeping the team points race interesting towards the end of the season, which isn’t really something that has been said since team points became a thing back in 2008.

Here’s the Monday night recap from long-time listener, 1st time referee Richard Classy:

It was a packed house last night at the El Bar as competitors came from all around the world (Greater Philadelphia and New Jersey) to get a look at Special Guest referee Richard Classy in action. All 32 tournament spots filled up quickly and some players even had to be denied entry. Sorry Hand Banana. With a lot of new players in attendance there were of course many penalties throughout the night. “I was really happy to see very strict officiating” said Frankie 13.

The final match would come down to two veteran players, each representing the two teams who are currently sitting very closely at the top of the rankings. Rock Hard of the Blackout Mother F*ckers squared off against One Armed Scissor of B-Pac Presents RPS Speedwagon.  It looked like it would be a long and grueling match as they traded some well sharpened scissors against a couple of very flat, but extra dull papers. That is as far as the exchange of blows would go though as One Armed Scissor took the first match and refused to give up a single point the rest of the game. It was a very convincing 3 matches to 0 victory.

This would prove to be an especially sweet win for One Armed Scissor. It was only one week ago that he had found himself in the finals against teammate Dick Nasty (oddly not in attendance last night) and couldn’t find his way to becoming the night’s champion. This week though he repeatedly mentioned how hungry he was for it. Or maybe he was simply just hungry?

On the Street side of things there was a lot of money (possibly all of it) in play. It would be Betty Berkowitz though who handed in the largest stack, defeating Somebody Needs a Hugulas by a score of 129 to 82. Betty refused to play for it and that might have been a wise decision as it was none other than Hugulas who knocked her out of the tournament in round 1. She received an extra 2 points towards her season total in what is shaping up to be a tight race for Rookie of the Year.

There promises to be a large turnout for this special event, so arrive early!  And this question will be asked so I’ll answer it now: ref’s can’t play, but they can get credit for attendance towards a perfect attendance award.

Swede faced off against Say Hey, J. Martin Hill in the Championship match and it was not looking good for Swede at all.  Say Hey, J. Martin Hill took the first two matches really quickly (like 4 throws quick) and then the first throw in what could have been a 3 match to 0 Championship sweep.  He only needed one winning throw.  But Swede-Heart not only came back with the next two throws to stave off elimination for another round, but she didn’t lose a throw the rest of the match!

It was a fantastic comeback for sure and Swede-Heart deserves a ton of credit.  Say Hey, J. Martin Hill was the latest to pull “The Zombie Llama”.  There have been a few times this has happened over the past 7 seasons, but it happened to Zombie Llama at the very first City League tournament and it took him over two years to recover and win a tournament.

There were a lot of Street dollars in circulation as the went out of print towards the end of the night.  It was rookie player Jimmy Jangles who came through with almost half the money out there.  The 2nd closest was Panty Bandit.  Not a bad first night for Jimmy Jangles.  He got to the 3rd round and picked up the street win.  There’s still half a season left so Rookie of the Year title/prize is still wide open.

Amazingly this was Mr. Nasty’s 3rd championship match of the week, a feat that most likely has never happened before.  If it was it would have been Loomer or Billy Shears in 2009, but that was back when there was only three tournaments a week so it seems unlikely according to the PBRPRPSCLCS official historian.

So anyway, Monday Dick Nasty got the best of teammate One Armed Scissor, Tuesday he got served by Frankie 13 and this time his victim would be Hambone, BSN (green shirt in photo w/great hair).  It wasn’t a particularly close match and Hambone BSN seemed resigned to a loss about midway through using the “at least the points stay with the team” logic.  Can Dick Nasty go 4 for 4 this week tonight at Connie’s Ric Rac?

There were some points that did not stay with the team for Hambone, BSN and those went to Blackout Motherf*cker Frankie 13 because he won the street RPS tournament.  It was really, really close which triggered an automatic recount.  The recount returned the same results (good job counting, ref!) and Frankie 13 defeated The Girl With the Paper Tattoo by a score of 78-76.  After that happened the rest of B-Pac Presents RPS Speedwagon was giving Hambone, BSN some grief about something.  But it didn’t matter, Frankie 13 and Dick Nasty flipped the script on the night before where Frankie 13 won the tourney and Dick Nasty won the Street match.

This one had the same outcome as the last time, as Frankie 13 took down Mr. Nasty in a pretty quick Championship match by a count of 3 matches to 1.  It looked like Mr. Perfect Attendance was going to make a game out of it at the end, but Frankie 13 held firm to his strategy and got his 2nd win of the season.  It would have been his 3rd of the year if he hadn’t fallen victim to birthday girl Paper Chase last week.

Along the way last night the Dirty Dozen picked up a bunch of new players, B-Pac’s tie was nearly retired (if only Hambone BSN had brought it), and first time player Holy Diver won the best rookie of the night award, an award which doesn’t really exist.  But he did come ready to play some serious RPS.

Oh also, Dirty Dozen member Gingerly, appearing in his 2nd tournament ever, really doesn’t care for Dick Nasty and let that be known.  He is the leader in total points so haters gonna hate, I suppose.

Also like in week 7 of last year, Gingerly’s public enemy #1 got the street prize for the night.  He turned in a lot of fake dollars and The Lambshank Redemption gets a mention here for placing 2nd with not quite as many fake dollars.  I’m guessing this won’t be the last time either of those players in this space during the 2012 season.

The drama that unfolded at the El Bar on Monday Night would have made for some great TV. A mid-season special episode of “Dick Nasty Explains it All,” perhaps? Eh.

Dick Nasty and his room/teammate One-Armed Scissor spent the entire day practicing primes, embracing and promising each other that nothing would ever tear them apart. They arrived at the El Bar with a common cause – to beef up their B-Pac Presents RPS Speedwagon team point total and grab a few individual points on the side. Little did they know that they would find themselves pitted against each other in the 2012 Pabst Blue Ribbon Philadelphia Rock Paper Scissors City League Championship Series final match-up. The One-Armed Scissor battled tough, but Dick Nasty would emerge the better half. The end. Right? Wrong. This is where things turned ugly.

While watching Dick Nasty bask in the glow of victory, the disgruntled One-Armed Scissor then kicked his roommate out of their apartment for the night. “I need time to think,” he said, tearfully. “I just… I just didn’t know you’d be the type of guy to throw rock so aggressively. Obviously, there are things in my life I need to re-evaluate… Starting with us. ” Heart-wrenching, indeed. But you don’t have to worry about Dick Nasty. An RPS Champion never goes homeless. Word is he headed on over to Clarissa’s house and offered to trade a delicious, cold PBR for a spot on her floor. The offer was rejected, and Nasty was forced to throw in his dirt bike to sweeten the deal. The end.

Oh, and Clarissa’s little brother Ferguson totally ratted them out on the beers.

The B-plot of this story involves the Shogun-ess Jayne Doe, who returned from a successful war campaign with a chest full of RPS street bucks and her third street victory of the season. She’s cuttin’ em down like bamboo, folks and our recap comes in the form of Haiku (see the theme I got going here?)  -

They were all so young
RPS dreams unfulfilled
Jayne Doe laughs at them.

Despite the Flyers loss, the players spirits were still high and spirit of RPS was strong in them all.  In the end it was strongest in the Heart Cutters and the staff of the Ric Rac, since that’s all who made it to the final four.  Swede Heart and Frankie Fingers were eliminated in the final 4, so it became an all rookie showdown between Aaron Space and Poodle Princess.

Aaron Space has been playing RPS competitively a bit longer than Poodle Princess (exactly two tournaments longer) and it showed in the finals.  He started strong and finished well, making sure Poodle Princess wasn’t able to put together any sort of comeback in the middle.

It was another win at Connie’s Ric Rac for the Heart Cutters (Sweetji won there in week 1) and then a win for everyone in attendance as it was karaoke time, which it will be every week after RPS and most likely in between rounds as well.

Speaking of performing well at the Ric Rac, dOGulas got his 2nd street win there in as many weeks.  It was kind of close, but he didn’t want to play for it and it turned out to be the smart move.  dOGulas then savored the taste of victory by stuffing the street money in his mouth, which means that the taste of victory is a very particular combination of pant sweat, dirty hands and spilled citywide specials.  Anyway, a surprisingly healthy dOGulas got an extra two points.