Beer Pong Rules

Our Rules

So you've decided to play beer pong. Good for you. If you follow these simple rules, in a short amount of time, you will be passed out on the floor. These rules are for two teams of two each, assuming, of course, that you can find three other people who can stand you for more than five minutes. You need ten uniformly sized cups per side. 16 oz plastic cups seem to work best.

Place ten cups in a triangle shape at opposite ends of the table. For our 'special' friends, that means four in the back row, then three, tapering to two, and then one in the front. Very good.

Fill the cups with any amount of beer that you want: you and your opponents are gonna end up drinking it. Generally, two beers for ten cups seems to work well, or if you have a keg (you lucky bastard), fill each cup about 1/3 of the way full.

Challengers get the beer. This means if you are next up on the table, carry your fat ass over to the beer and obtain enough for yourself and the incumbents on the table. They will be much appreciative because they are as lazy as you and will be glad they didn't have to do any walking.

Additionally, there should be a water cup for each side of the table. It has been our experience that avid beer players rarely have any kind of zeal for cleaning since they spend most of their time passed out on a couch with one shoe on. Therefore, their floor will be dirty and a wet ping pong ball collects dirt rather well. Rinse it off you filthy bastard.

If you haven't procured two ping pong balls for this game, go stand in the corner.

The object is to throw the ball from your side of the table into the cups on the other side of the table which are filled with the golden elixir that is beer. It's kind of like basketball except that you use a ping pong ball. And instead of a hoop, there are ten beer-filled cups. Okay, so it's nothing like basketball.

The challengers take a lone first shot. Then the defending champs take the next two shots. If this somehow seems unfair to you, it means you suck at beer pong and never have the luxury of being the defending champions. Stop your bitching, win a game, and then this rule will work in your favor.

From this point on, each team takes two shots, then the other team takes two shots and so on. It's that simple.

If each teammate sinks their shot, they receive rollbacks. This means they both get to shoot again. This rule rewards skill (not that you'd know anything about that).

Ideally, the beer pong table is about 8 feet long. Any surface will do in a pinch, for it is a far lesser crime to play beer pong on a less than ideal table than to not play at all. If the table is short, you can enforce some distance from which the players must stand from the table. For example, on a table between 6-7 feet, requiring a players elbow to stay behind the edge of the table should make for adequate distance from the cups. Unless of course you are playing an orangutan, at which point, regulating the game of beer pong is secondary to dodging feces.

Generally, teammates alternate drinking their beers that have been sunk. As the evening progresses, games will deteriorate, and ideally you'll end up partnered with an attractive member of the opposite sex who can't hold their beer. You will have to intervene on their behalf to consume the beer. Cherish this moment that you share, before they realize that the broken lava lamp in the corner has more personality than you. In reality, what will happen is that you will team up with a friend of yours who insists on playing another game while expending the majority of their energy trying not to fall over. Due to massive alcohol consumption, this person will suck at beer pong, leading you have to drink too much beer so that you may inflict the same fate on yet another, more sober friend.

Men may not bounce the ball, lest they have their character come under severe scrutiny. The virtues of your mother, your sister, your girlfriend or your life partner are all fair game for the derision that you deserve. Women are free to do as they please.

Men may not blow the ball out of the cups. Some men will insist on blowing the ball out of these cups. For these men, we suggest keeping balloons and phallic shaped objects around so that they may get their blowing fix. Cucumbers, hot dogs, and popsicles fill this need nicely. Women are permitted to blow all they want.

Distractions and taunting are part of the good-natured competition that is beer pong. A warning though: don't let your mouth write any checks your ass can't cash. As there is alcohol involved, and although apparently a depressant, beer mixed with a few choice words often elicits quite a reaction. Women are allowed to do whatever they would like, distractions involving various states of undress or flashing are encouraged.

As you may gather, women can do pretty much whatever the hell they want short of walking over to your cups and dropping the ball, although this too may be permitted if an agreement is reached between the two parties regarding considerations later in the evening- certain 'favors'... etc.

Once a ball strikes a cup, it is open to be defended by your opponent. Should they interfere with the ball before it strikes the cup, this is goaltending, and the shot will be repeated, while the offending individual will be warned with a finger shaking the likes of which they have never seen before. Repeat offenders will be tossed into the crawl space. Women will be tossed into the closet and one of us will be summoned immediately.

If someone knocks the ball into their own cup, that cup counts as sunk. If they drop the ball in accidentally it counts. If the hand of god comes down and places the ball in the cup, it counts. Take up all complaints with said god. If an opponent knocks it into your cup when it's not their turn, it does not count. I know your tricks.

If someone knocks over their own cups, hopefully it will splash onto their pants in such a way that it is virtually impossible to resist making a joke about their bladder control that would be best suited for elementary school. Also this cup counts as sunk and they are a klutz.

Once six cups are remaining on a side, they shall be re-arranged to form a triangle with a base of three cups. Once three cups are remaining on a side, they shall be re-arranged to form a triangle with a base of two cups. It is the job of those shooting at those cups to request a re-rack of the cups (consolidation). The last remaining cup should be centered at the end of the table. Should your opponent be tardy on the consolidation, hit them over the head with a shovel. This should get their attention.

If, by some divine intervention, you should land a ball at the meeting of three cups such that it rests at this junction, without falling in, you have achieved a trifecta. All three of those cups are considered sunk. Rejoice in the knowledge that fate has smiled upon you. Mourn in the knowledge that of all the aspects of your life, fate has chosen to smile upon you during a beer pong game, as opposed to say . . . the lottery.

When one team sinks the last cup, all shooting ceases for the moment. If you are the first of your team to shoot and make it, your teammate does not get to shoot. They would be shooting at a cup that has already been sank, and should be removed. Now return both balls to your opponents for 'throwbacks.' EACH member of the opposing team gets to shoot until they miss. This is what is known as pressure. Being the good sport that you are, you are giving them an opportunity for salvation. If they sink all the remaining cups, you go into overtime and they have earned your respect. If they do not, they have lost, and you may revel in their failure.

If your opponent sinks your last cup and you drink it, you are conceding defeat. You've still got a chance, its not over. Over? Did you say over? Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! But we digress.

If both teams sink the last cups, you proceed to overtime. Here, the last cup remains, and each team shoots in turn, until the last cup is sunk and the opposing teams throwbacks fail. The team that first sunk the last cup gets both balls for the first round of overtime. As before, if the first shooter on a team sinks the cup, it becomes the other teams turn. This is the closest you will ever get to any kind of athletic event that remotely involves pressure.

If two cups remain at the end of the game, and a team sinks both in a turn, this does not constitute rollbacks, or an automatic victory. The other team still gets their attempts, however futile, to force overtime.

The losers drink whatever beer remains in their opponents cups they have left unsunk. Retire to a dark corner to drink your beer and plot your revenge. And hurry up, we need those cups for the next game.

Variations

As much as we like our rules, sometimes we play a bit differently. If there are less than four of us around, how in the hell are we going to play teams? In this case, we play one on one. Everything's pretty much the same, except you only use one ball. This gets rid of all the throwback rules. It also means that the winner gets to throw first. This still rewards players that have skill, no skill. For this variation, You can adjust the number of cups from ten to six.

But don't think that you need even two people to play. Solitaire beer pong can be accomplished. One of us has played by shooting with a different hand from each side of the table, pitting the left versus the right. However, the rest of us did question his heterosexuality.

The other variation that we play is by increasing the number of cups used per game. Instead of 10 cup beer pong, try 55 cup beer pong. This should only be attempted by those with a truly superhuman tolerance, or people that just really want to drink a lot. Adjust the reracks accordingly, and you've got yourself a good time.