Another year, another International Rock-Paper-Scissors Championship. All Too Flat has been sending teams since the Championship began in 2002. For past events, please check out our 2002 and 2003 RPS pages.

The tournament was organized by the World RPS Society and held in Toronto again this year. (Seems like a trend is developing on that front.) The official tournament website is found at RPS Champs.

After disappointing performances in past years, the All Too Flat team decided this year to take their RPS Training to a while new level. Starting 1 month before the tournament, the team members began a rigorous training program. The training program consisted of both physical and mental training. We began playing online against the computer to get our timing and form perfected. Additionally, the team began intense weight training at the gym. More on this later.

Once our physical game improved, we set out to conquer the mental game. We spent a fair amount of time studying players and gathering statistics. We compiled tons of stats of amateur players, which was most likely our downfall - more on this later. For a complete breakdown of the RPS training program, please see the 2004 ATFRPS Training Blog.

In fact, our traing program is so renowned, we had articles written up about us and our training program:

(For full stories, see New York Sun, New York Press (pdf))

Arguably more important than the Training Program was getting Uniforms together. After 2 year of attending in ATF t-shirts, we realized that we needed to take our style to the next level. After much debate, we decided to go with Superhero costumes.

After a brief stint in K-Mart, we realized that off-the-shelf costumes weren't going to cut it.

We decided to go with custom made costumes, as well as custom made RPS-themed superheros. The first stop was to the Superhero Store in Brooklyn, NY.

The superhero store sells everyone a superhero might need to fight crime, including capes, grappling hooks, utility belts, and alter-ego kits.

Possibly the best part of the Superhero Store is the dressing room, which has a giant fan so you can see what you'll look like with your cape in action. Genius!

Unfortunately, most of the superhero suits for sale weren't condusive to 6 foot tall men. I blame Michael Keaton, who started the terrible trend of Batman standing a mere 5'7". Anyway, it was off to Capezio Dance Store, possibly the most famous Dance store on Broadway in midtown Manhattan.

We quickly found the perfect uniforms:

The funniest part of the process was when we were checking out, each buying a unitard and a pair of undies, the cashier looked at us with a straight face and asked "superheros?"
On second thought, that wasn't the funniest part of the process:

(Oh, and for those of you out there who aren't sure what a unitard is, it's what we're wearing in the picture. Not only are they funny to wear, they lend themselves very well to "tard" jokes.)

Armed with our new body-suits, we took a trip back to the superhero store to pick out matching capes. Here's a picture of Kennyb trying on his suit and cape in the changing room with the fan.

and a picture of Jeremy planning his Paper uniform

Looks like things were starting to come together for the ATF crew!!

Next up was accessorizing. We bought what we could at the store (utility belts, capes, masks), but still had some extra stuff to make. The next stop was a fabric store in the Historic Garment District in the Lower East Side. After 2 hours of trying to look at tough as possible buying fabric, we emerged with over $50 worth of fabric, pins, buttons, ribbon, lace (for kennyb, not for the costume), thread, and needles:

A few hours and a few sewing callouses later, and the All Too Flat team was ready to Rock-Paper-Scissors all the way to Canada and bring home $10,000!

Introducing Red Rock (The Boy Boulder), Scizzoro, and The Sheet!