Analyzing the opponent's moves—rounds 1-3 oscillated with rock and paper, then rounds 4-5 featured repeated paper, and rounds 6-8 were all scissors—I suspect a block strategy where the opponent is pre-programmed to use each move a certain number of times. With only 2 occurrences of rock so far versus 3 each of paper and scissors, it’s likely that the opponent will switch to rock in round 9 to balance his sequence. Since paper beats rock, I choose paper for round 9.