Seth Welch of Watkinsville, Georgia, entered a Chick-fil-A Rock Paper Scissors tournament expecting to lose in the first round. He beat 31 other competitors, won five rounds, and walked out as champion with a year of free Chick-fil-A.
The tournament was run by the Chick-fil-A location on Atlanta Highway as a community event. Best-of-three format, single elimination, five rounds to claim the title. Thirty-two players, which is the ideal bracket size — clean powers of two, no byes necessary, direct path from opening round to final. Welch went through all five.
"I thought I'd get knocked out by some 13-year-old," Welch said. He didn't. He beat whoever was on the other side of each match, including, presumably, several 13-year-olds, and won. "To get past the first round was pretty cool... to win the whole thing was just pretty awesome."
The prize was a year of free Chick-fil-A, which is a prize that requires no explanation to anyone who has eaten at Chick-fil-A. The Chick-fil-A Atlantic Highway marketing director, Montanna Heffington, said the event was about community as much as competition — getting people in, getting them involved, giving them a reason to interact beyond the transaction. A Rock Paper Scissors bracket does that efficiently. It's inclusive in a way most competitions aren't, the format is immediately legible to anyone, and it resolves quickly enough that you can run a full 32-person single-elimination bracket during a lunch rush.
Welch's win is a version of the same story that shows up at every RPS tournament: the person who shows up without expectations, plays their throws clean, reads the room better than they thought they would, and walks out with the title. The game rewards presence and composure in a format that doesn't require you to have trained for years. That's not unique to Chick-fil-A tournaments. It's the design of the sport. But free food for a year is a better incentive than most sports offer for winning a regional event.