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Kevin Hall is a winner, but not everyone believes it.

“Wait, that’s the owner guy of the bar,” says Hall, gesturing down the long bar to a man in a T-shirt and shorts carrying a clip board and briefcase.

“Hey,” he says, pulling him over. The man chin-nods Hall, a regular at Ron Daos Pizzeria and Sports Bar in south Fort Myers. Hall lives about 10 minutes away. “You remember I was telling you that I won that rock, paper, scissors tourney?”

He nods, the slight upturn of the right corner of his mouth telegraphing pure incredulity.

“Well, this lady is interviewing me for the paper.”

The guy looks at me. He looks at my pad. He looks back to Hall, 23, and his pitcher of beer.

He laughs.

That, Hall says, is not the first time they’ve gotten that reaction since he and his roommate, Neil Swetz, stumbled into a competition at Ricochet, a bar along 41, in late January. Or even since March, when Hall won the big kahuna of local competitions, which is sending him and friend to the 2006 USARPS Championships in Las Vegas. They fly today, free, for a Sunday competition drawing 264 competitors from almost every state.

“We’re staying in the Luxor,” he says. “It’s, like, $350 a night. I looked it up yesterday. That’s great.”

Unlike much of the tools of bygone schoolyard debates — the I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I gambit, the double-dog dare and as a last resort, the fist fight — rock, paper, scissors has survived the years still reliable and virtually unchanged. Even today, it’s a spectacle of flashing hand signs that represent rock (which smashes scissors), paper (which covers rock) and scissors (which cuts paper). Players throw until a dominant outcome emerges.

Hall says he hasn’t played since he was in college, which was about a year ago.

“Me and my roommate are there, at Ricochet, every Tuesday because it’s coin night,” says the Philadelphia native who goes on to explain that a coin, any coin, will buy a beer or mixed drink there from 7 to 10 p.m. The money goes to charity, he adds.

They were there early, as is their ritual, so they can get the table they like and more practically, to get as much cheap beer as they can in a scant three hours.

The competition boasted no bodacious Bud Light girls, no free beer, no disco balls or confetti to seduce the bar denizens into competing. Just a banner, a sign-up sheet and a local gal who acted as referee.

“It was free,” Hall says, “and something to do while we were there.”

Which may be just the attitude that attracted Anheuser-Busch to sponsor the fledgling U.S.A. Rock Paper Scissors League, formed in January by two L.A. television producers. The Missouri brewing behemoth backed thousands of local tournaments, giving away T-shirts and towels and USARPS beads as well as the big competition on Sunday in Las Vegas. The winner takes home $50,000.

Also on board: The cable network A&E will televise a program that organizers describe as a “sporting event combined with a comedy variety show.” It will focus on the characters and color of the event and its players. The show will air on June 12.

Matti Leshem, 43, is a creator, organizer and adept cheerleader for what he calls is the “rock ‘n’ roll league” for the sport. The Toronto-based World RPS Society preceded Leshem and producer partner Andrew Golden, by a decade. “It’s not just for Canada anymore.”

For this year anyway. The wisdom of numbers crunchers and marketing gurus hasn’t coalesced and the status of Bud Light’s support is hanging in the balance. “But they’re clearly very happy with it.”

At stake is the sport’s status — and revenues — of being the Next Big Thing in an increasingly malleable theater of televised sports, which includes ratings-winner Texas Hold ‘em poker and soon on ESPN, dominos. Rather than training, physical ability or the intricate web of statistics so many sports enthusiasts revels in, these programs delve into an insider world of colorful and possibly dangerous characters. For lack of a better word, it’s cool.

“I’d never heard of it,” says Hall, a recreation major who completed an internship with Sundial Beach Resort in September and went on to work there. “Never. It was just the (Bud Light) sign.”

- - -

That first night, Hall’s roommate lost in the first round.

“To a girl,” says Hall, smirking over his glass.

Still, Swetz circulated among the 40 or so competitors to scout signs, reporting what opponents seemed to favor.

It’s a strategy that fits neatly in what the league’s EPSN-meets-Maxim Web site calls the game’s psychological warfare. Tips include speed pumping (increasing the velocity of the wind-up to confuse and intimidate opponents), hand positioning and looking for unconscious throwing patterns and signals, called tells in the poker world.

“Once enough information is gathered,” the Web site advises, “a strong player can get inside their opponent’s mind and simply own them.”

Hall has read the tips, but for him, it’s pretty simple. “I threw the opposite of what he told me and I won,” he says. He shakes his head. “I still can’t believe that I’m going to Las Vegas. And for this.”

All over the bar a mixed bag of sports play, silently, on a pantheon of televisions. Men with tans slump back in their chairs, solemnly watching the parade. Hall, a long drink of water who would be pin-up handsome if he didn’t so often break into a goofy expression of little boy amusement, takes a sip of beer.

“I never used to drink Bud Light,” he says. “Now I do. What other beer company is going to send me to Las Vegas?”

The first competition went fast with the winner of two bouts of best of three “engagements” deciding the match. And with only 14 throwers the March 11 competition went even faster. When it was over, he was on his cellphone to his mother, and she didn’t believe him.

“I thought it was a big joke,” says Kara Palmer, 23, Hall’s girlfriend and roommate.

He laughs.

“We have shirts we’re going to wear,” says Swetz, a gawky-thin 23-year-old still growing into himself. He’s coming with Hall, the result of the pact they made before the first tournament: If one of them wins, they agree to take the other to Las Vegas.

“Mine says ‘Kevin runs with scissors.’ His says, ‘I cause paper cuts.’”

They guffaw.

“I’m just along for a good ride,” says Swetz, who wears a T-shirt that reads “My teacher told me I could be anything. So I became a drunk.” Then, under his breath, “I hope it’s a good ride.”

Hall picks at the bandaged middle finger on his right hand. He cut it the day before.

“I just hope this finger heals,” he says, smirking at his friend. “This is my rock hand. I like to throw rock. I don’t know why.”

But he doesn’t practice. Not rock paper scissors anyway. He’s working on his blackjack, which he hopes to wedge in the three days of activities planned for league players.

He’s not counting on winning, although the $50,000 would go a long way to paying off his credit cards, student loans and car payments. “I was happy with the T-shirt and the beads.”

It’s all luck, he says. “The whole thing. I don’t know what anyone’s going to throw. It’s like picking a name out of a hat.”

In the end, you can’t over-think it. “That’s what gives me an advantage. No thinking. No thinking at all.”

The Rules

-- There are three permissible “throws” in RPS: They are rock, paper and scissors. Rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, paper beats rock. There are no exceptions. When two players sign — or throw — the same element, they are considered tied.

-- Each throw is considered an engagement. The best of three is a bout. The best of three bouts is a match.

-- Each engagement begins with a referee raising his hand vertically between the two opponents and saying the word, “Engage!” (In international play, this is commonly stated as en garde.) This cues the players to pump.

-- The windup to the throw, called the pump, consists of closing a fist and moving it in vertical fashion three times. This must be done in sync with the opposing player. Players are permitted to chant “RO-SHAM-BO” to sync with their opponent.

-- The delivery of the throw, which comes after the pump, must be in sync with the opponent.

-- Rock can be thrown in any way as long as the fist is clenched.

-- Scissors can be thrown horizontally or vertically (international rules differ).

-- Paper is always horizontal.

-- All referees’ calls are final. No post-match arbitration allowed.

Source: U.S.A. Rock Paper Scissors League at www.usarps.com