Beer Pong: How’s Your Shot?

Winning at Beer Pong is All in the Wrist

For many, drinking games are part of growing and they are immensely popular at college campuses across the country. Among these popular pastimes, beer pong reigns as the king of beer drinking diversions. How is beer pong played? What is the obect of beer pong? Who wins, and what does the winner receive or the loser have to do?
For those who are uninitiated, let me explain this simple game. Glasses of beer are arranged on opposite ends of a table, in the form of a triangle. This involves either six or ten glasses, lined up touching one another in a fashion similar to the balls in a game of billiards. Teams form on each end of the table, usually consisting of two, three, or four players each. Players take turns tossing a ping pong ball across the table, attempting to land it squarely inside one of the full glasses of beer. If the ping pong ball does land inside a cup, the opposing team must consume that cup and it is then removed from play. The game of beer pong continues until there are no remaining cups of beer.
Rules for playing beer pong vary from place to place and many variations exist on this game. But some rules are fairly consistent from one game to the next. For example, there are three ways to throw the ping pong ball: A direct, fast shot; an arcing shot, like shooting a basketball; and a bounced shot. If a player opts for the bounce shot, one common rule is that the opposing team can bat the ball away once it has bounced. Also, as an extra reward to the person who takes the added risk by attempting a bounce shot, if it lands in a cup the other team must consume that cup plus one more. Another common rule involves swatting away the ping pong ball if it has come in contact with another cup. Like I already stated, a bounced shot can be swatted away once it hits the table, but any other type of shot can be batted away if it comes in contact with a cup. This defensive move helps to get the ping pong ball out of play, preventing it from ricocheting into another cup.
Some other common beer pong rules involve the final cup of beer. If a team is down to its last cup and the other team lands a ping pong ball in that cup, the team with the last cup has a chance to match it by making one final throw. If their throw lands in a cup, the game goes on. This is similar to extra innings in baseball, when one team has been scored upon, goes back to bat, and scores some runs of its own to tie the game. Play continues in baseball until there is a clear winner, and the same is true with beer pong.
Beer Pong is quite popular at parties across the USA, and nowhere is this truer than at college parties. Many teams of beer pong players take great pride in their ability to score direct shots in opposing player’s cups of beer and many are very good at defending their own cups with a good swat of the hand. Many players- especially newer ones- often forget the importance of defense to the game of beer pong. More experiences players, however, know that good defensive moves and quickness are just as important to winning beer pong as solid offense. These experienced players are often a force to be reckoned with at parties; their wrists and quick hands the envy of losing beer pong teams who try to keep pace but come up short in the end.
In beer pong, there are winners and losers, like with any game. But beer pong losers at least get to enjoy some cold brew for their efforts, making the game of beer pong one of several drinking games that, if you think about it, really doesn’t have any losers. It’s all in fun and as long as players remember to go easy and not play too many rounds, beer pong can be a fun, entertaining social activity, full of laughter and good fun on both ends of the table.