Beer pong
Encyclopedia
Beer pong, also known as Beirut, is a drinking game
in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer
on the other end. The game typically consists of two two-to-four-player teams and multiple cups set up, in triangle formation, on each side. There are no official rules and rules may vary widely, though usually there are six or ten plastic cups arranged in a triangle on each side. Each team then takes turns attempting to shoot ping pong balls into the opponent's cups. If a ball lands in a cup, then the contents of that cup are consumed by the other team, and the cup is either placed aside or reinserted into the triangle. If the cup is reinserted and the other team knocks the cup over, it is removed. If the opposing team throws the ball into an empty cup, they must consume the contents of one of their cups. The first side to eliminate all of the opponent's cups is the winner.
The order of play varies—both players on one team shoot followed by both players on the other team, or players on opposite teams can alternate back and forth.
colleges and universities bars, and elsewhere, such as tailgating
or other sporting events.
which is generally regarded to have had its origins within the fraternities of Dartmouth College
in the 1950s and '60s, where it has since become part of the social culture of the campus. The original version resembled an actual ping pong game with a net and one or more cups of beer on each side of the table. Eventually, a version without paddles was created, and later the names Beer Pong and Beirut were adopted in some areas of the USA sometime in the 1980s.
Bucknell University
's student-run newspaper, The Bucknellian, claims Delta Upsilon
fraternity members at Bucknell created "Throw Pong", a game very similar to beer pong, during the 1970s. "Throw Pong" was then brought to Lehigh University
by fraternity brothers who visited Bucknell, and this led to the creation of the version of beer pong that is played today.
In some places Beer Pong refers to the version of the game with paddles, and Beirut to the version without. However, according to a CollegeHumor
survey, beer pong is a more common term than Beirut for the paddle-less game.
The origin of the name "Beirut" is disputed. A 2004 op-ed article in the Daily Princetonian, the student newspaper at Princeton University
, suggested that the name was possibly coined at Bucknell or Lehigh University around the time of the Lebanese Civil War
, Beirut
being the capital of Lebanon
and scene of much fighting. Some students at Lafayette College
, rivals of Lehigh, insist modern, paddle-less beer pong was invented at their school, but The Lafayette, the college's student newspaper, says there is no proof to back up the assertion.
board cut to proper size, sometimes painted with sports, school, or fraternity symbols and given a liquid-proof coating. Some companies sell tables, and there are companies making portable or inflatable tables. The game can be played on any flat surface, most typically a dining table.
38 mm (1.5 in) or 40 mm (1.6 in) table tennis
(ping pong) balls are typically used for game play.
or light beer of 3.2–5% ABV
is sometimes preferred because of the large quantities of beer which may be consumed during the course of several games. Sometimes under house rules, there might be cups of other liquors used during the game. For non-drinkers, the game may be played without beer, as is done at Utah State University
, where alcohol is not allowed on campus—root beer
is used instead. The game may also be played with water instead of beer, or with cups full of water that players do not drink from, instead using another cup of beer or alcohol. In addition to beer pong, water pong has been banned in Dartmouth dorms due to a possibility of water intoxication
and as a violation of dorm policies. Water is often used in place of beer, but not meant to be consumed.
In some house rules, players must immediately drink any cup that has been hit. Failure to do so incurs a penalty, such as drinking more beer or losing the game. Some rule sets allow for "re-racking" (also known as "reforming", "rearranging", "consolidation", and other names), which is a rearrangement of a team's remaining cups after some have been removed. The formations, number of cups, when to rearrange and so on depend on the rule set. For example, a team with three remaining cups may ask the other team to "re-rack" their multiple targets into a single triangle formation.
Some other house rules allow swatting the ball away if it bounces. Others allow players to flick or blow the ball out of the cup if the ball spins around the inner rim, but blowing is often restricted to female players. Other rules state that if a team makes both shots in a round, each player may shoot again, sometimes called a "rollback". In World Series of Beer Pong rules only one repo/rollback is allowed and is a single ball, resulting in a 3 cup maximum that can be made per turn.
Before shooting, teams may dunk the ping pong balls into cups of water in order to wash off the balls. However, research has shown that the wash cups still hold bacteria, such as E. coli
. To avoid any illness, many players now put water in the cups instead of beer, and keep a beer on the side that can remain cold. In doing so, it removes the element of getting sick or even drinking any dirt that may transfer from the ball into the cup.
There are three key ways to shoot in beer pong: the arc, the fastball (or "laser, dart, snipe"), and the bounce shot. The most common throwing technique is the "arc" shot, where one grasps the ping pong ball with the tips of the thumb and forefinger, holds the arm at an angle with the ball upwards, then throw by using gentle elbow motion, holding the upper arm parallel with the table.
Some players throw "fastball" style, which uses more of a hard chopping motion to send the ball in a more direct line to the intended target cup. Also, a fastball shot may be favorable if house rules dictate a cup that is knocked over is taken off the table, in which case a fastball can eliminate multiple cups if thrown hard enough.
A "bounce" shot is performed by bouncing the ball toward the cups. Since (depending on house rules) the other team may have the opportunity to swat away a bounced ball, a bounce may be worth more than one cup. In some rule sets, bouncing is not allowed; in others, it is required.
During redemption the miss table rule does not apply.
A shutout or "stink bomb" rule is a house rule usually stated before a game or during the game in the midst of a shutout
. If the shutout does occur the losing team must do whatever the two teams decided on, such as going streaking
or drinking a large quantity of beer.
Depending on house rules, there are also other ways to end the game. Making it into the cup in which has already been made and has beer left in it immediately ends the game. This is also known as death cup. Some players may choose to shoot at the same time in hopes of making it in the same cup and ending the game. Some houses eliminate this by changing the rule to pulling 3 cups instead of ending the game.
Ring of fire or Honeycomb is when you hit middle cup, front cup, and the back corner cups leaving a ring or honeycomb shaped arrangement of cups remaining. After this occurs, the team must make and land the cup in the middle of the comb. If this is achieved the game immediately ends similar to dealth cup
board game marketed by Milton Bradley
. In this variation, a grid of 25 cups with 1" of water serves as the "ocean" for a team's boats. The 25 cups, arranged in a 5x5 grid, are the "targets". Teams place their ships by using 2, 3, and 4 pennies in the bottom of each cup in orthogonal lines. This type of placement is meant to mimic the orthogonal peg-board game surface of the Milton Bradley game.
Teams alternate turns, and there can be more than one player on a team. For each turn, each player shoots once and tries to land a ball in a target. If the target contains a penny, all the teams on the "hit" side drink. If the the balls lands in a target and there is no penny inside, the shooter drinks. In both cases the cup is emptied and turned over to reflect targets already hit. Once a complete row or series of pennies has been hit - the row of 2, 3, or 4 pennies - that ship has been sunk. When a team has a hit that causes a ship to be sunk, they receive a repeat turn.
Because there are not as many targets nor as many ships as the original board game of Battleship, the Destroyer, Submarine, Carrier, Battleship, and Cruiser are typically not used, or used interchangeably. Other pop-culture references are more typical, such as Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria (Christopher Columbus' three ships who voyaged to the New World,) or Time Bandit, Cornelia Marie, and Wizard (Ships in the crab fleet of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch.)
Tetris is another related game created at the University of Maryland on May 3, 2008, prior to Art Attack XXV, a concert headlined by Wyclef Jean. The founding occurred at 4702 College Ave. in College Park, MD, then, a Sigma Nu, Delta Phi Chapter satellite house. This variation combines elements of beer pong with the video game Tetris
developed by Alexey Pajitnov. The inspiration for the game was a house under construction on College Ave., which provided the wood to create the 'wall,' one of the game's distinguishing elements.
Tetris is played by two teams of four players, each paired with a member of the opposing team. The game requires 126 standard red cups, four balls, a full size beer pong table, and 18-24 inch high 'wall' placed in the middle of the table. Each side places 58 cups in 9 alternating rows of 8 and 7 cups, and fills the cups with the appropriate amount of liquid. Also, each team may choose any four 'party' cups to fill completely. The object of the game is to hit each of the other teams cups, and the game is played rapid fire, with pairs keeping track of their own balls. A player may not shoot until he or she has removed, and finished the cup that was previously hit. The same rule applies to party cups which must be similarly finished before shooting.
Instead of 'racking' the cups in a traditional rack, in Tetris, once an entire row has been eliminated by the opposing team, all of the cups in front of that row are re-set in alternating rows of 8 and 7 beginning at the row which was eliminated. Re-setting the cups, and thus moving the last row further from the center of the table, allows players to more easily shoot at the rows of cups originally protected by the 'wall' in the middle of the table.
Once a team has hit the last cup, 4 cups are placed on the back row to determine who will be able to 'rebutt.' Each team member shoots at the cup across the table, and if he or she hits the cup, the opposing team member loses his or her right to 'rebutt.' Those who have a chance to 'rebutt' shoot until they miss. If a game is sent to overtime, 8 cups are placed along the back row, with the same rebuttal rules.
Some writers have mentioned beer pong as contributing to "out of control" college drinking.
In early 2009, news sources claimed a recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) stated that beer pong was contributing to the spread of herpes
, mononucleosis
, and other diseases through shared cups. The CDC quickly responded as the CDC had not done such research, however the U.S. National Institutes of Health
(NIH) does suggest avoiding the sharing of eating utensils to prevent the transmission of certain contagious viruses such as herpes.
Some municipalities and states have attempted to ban beer pong, either from bars or in general, due to the belief that it encourages binge drinking
(see Health Effects above). In Oxford, Ohio
, where Miami University
is located, the city council tried to ban the game from being played outdoors, and in Arlington, Virginia and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois bar owners were told to stop allowing the game to be played in their establishments. In the fall of 2007, Georgetown University
officially banned all beer pong paraphernalia, such as custom-built tables and the possession of many ping-pong balls.
Time magazine
ran an article on July 31, 2008 called "The War Against Beer Pong", noting legal restrictions and bans on the game in college and elsewhere.
In many states, players have taken to placing water in cups in order to hold organized beer pong tournaments legally in bars. Some examples of this can be found in Michigan, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.
The World Series of Beer Pong
(WSOBP), hosted by bpong.com, is the largest beer pong tournament in the world. WSOBP IV, held in January 2009 at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas
, Nevada
, had a $50,000 grand prize and attracted over 800 participants from the US and Canada. WSOBP V, held in January 2010, attracted over 1,000 participants, and attracted teams from Ireland, Scotland, Germany and Japan, each of which voiced their aspirations to further the sport in their home countries. The World Beer Pong Tour has stops in various cities and cash prizes as well.
A more common organization of beer pong games are leagues which operate on a local or regional level. Ordinarily, a group of pong enthusiasts will create teams (partnerships) and play weekly against each other. Sometimes, the leagues have websites, rankings and statistics, while others have been started by college students with the goal of intramural competition such as at University of California, Santa Barbara
with the "Isla Vista Beer Pong League", and at New York University
.
, Time
and other media outlets have reported on the increase in businesses selling beer pong paraphernalia, such as tables, mats, cups, or clothes. Last Cup: Road to the World Series of Beer Pong is a documentary which follows some competitive players as they prepare for the WSOBP II and ultimately compete against one another for the $20,000 grand prize. This documentary, directed by Dan Lindsay, premiered at the CineVegas
film festival on June 13, 2008. WSOBP V attracted further media attention, with writers from Maxim
magazine and ESPN The Magazine
attending, and it was featured on The Jay Leno Show
on January 8, 2010, and also on G4
's Attack of the Show!
on January 11, 2010. Rick Reilly
wrote an entire column about The World Series of Beer Pong IV for ESPN The Magazine.
The Associated Press
cited the game and other drinking games as a factor in deaths of college students.
Time
magazine recently had an article on the popularity of beer pong and posted a video on their website. In both, players claimed beer pong was a sport, rather than a game—similar to billiards
and darts
.
The game has been a recurring segment on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
, with host Fallon playing against female celebrity guests such as Betty White
, Serena Williams
, Anna Kournikova
, Charlize Theron
and Jessica Alba
.
The Colbert Report featured a segment on the CDC study hoax.
Road Trip: Beer Pong
, a sequel to 2000 comedy Road Trip, featured the game prominently. Agnes Scott College
, where most of the movie was filmed, did not want to be listed in the credits after complaints from students.
Characters in other TV shows have played it as well, such as Greek
, Weeds
, and Dave Attell
and Bree Olson
on the series premiere of Tosh.0
.
In the movie Beerfest
, they had the original version of beer pong with paddles in it. Also they had the non paddle version, calling it Beirut.
Beer Pong is also referred to in the song "I Like It Like That" by Charra Rae in the Interlude of the song
published The Book of Beer Pong, a 200 page fully illustrated guide to the game.
said involved the drinking of water, not Budweiser
or any other beer. In the summer of 2005, the company began marketing "bud pong" kits to its distributors. Francine I. Katz, vice president for communications and consumer affairs, was reported in The New York Times
as saying that bud pong was not intended for underage drinkers because promotions were held in bars, not on campuses. And it did not promote binge drinking, she said, because official rules call for water to be used, not beer.
The New York Times quoted a bartender at a club near Clemson University
as saying she had worked at several bud pong events and had "never seen anyone playing with water. It's always beer. It's just like any other beer pong."
Some expressed incredulity at Anheuser-Busch's public statements. Henry Wechsler, director of the College Alcohol Study at the Harvard School of Public Health
, said: "Why would alcohol companies promote games that involve drinking water? It's preposterous," while advertising news site Adjab opined that "someone playing bud pong with water is about as likely as a teenage kid using the rolling paper he bought at the convenience store to smoke tobacco."
However, the practice of playing with water has become increasingly common on college campuses, due to the cost saving effects. Instead of drinking the beer from a glass each time a player sinks a shot, the player simply takes a shot of liquor or a sip from their own drink each time the opposing team scores. This is usually done when there isn't enough beer to accommodate a large number of games during the party.
Inc. released a downloadable video game for the Wii
console called Frat Party Games: Beer Pong. After much outrage by parent and university groups, the game was renamed Frat Party Games: Pong Toss
and all references to alcohol were removed.
Drinking game
Drinking games are games which involve the consumption of alcoholic beverages. These games vary widely in scope and complexity, although the purpose of most is to become intoxicated as quickly as possible...
in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
on the other end. The game typically consists of two two-to-four-player teams and multiple cups set up, in triangle formation, on each side. There are no official rules and rules may vary widely, though usually there are six or ten plastic cups arranged in a triangle on each side. Each team then takes turns attempting to shoot ping pong balls into the opponent's cups. If a ball lands in a cup, then the contents of that cup are consumed by the other team, and the cup is either placed aside or reinserted into the triangle. If the cup is reinserted and the other team knocks the cup over, it is removed. If the opposing team throws the ball into an empty cup, they must consume the contents of one of their cups. The first side to eliminate all of the opponent's cups is the winner.
The order of play varies—both players on one team shoot followed by both players on the other team, or players on opposite teams can alternate back and forth.
Venues
Today, beer pong is played at parties, North AmericanNorth American
North American generally refers to an entity, people, group, or attribute of North America, especially of the United States and Canada together.-Culture:*North American English, a collective term used to describe American English and Canadian English...
colleges and universities bars, and elsewhere, such as tailgating
Tailgate party
In the United States, a tailgate party is a social event held on and around the open tailgate of a vehicle. Tailgating often involves consuming alcoholic beverages and grilling food. Tailgate parties usually occur in the parking lots at stadiums and arenas, before and occasionally after games and...
or other sporting events.
Origin and name
The game evolved from the original beer pong played with paddlesBeer pong (paddles)
Beer pong is a drinking game loosely based on ping pong, that involves use of paddles to hit a ping pong ball into obstacles on the opposing side. The origin of beer pong is generally credited to Dartmouth College...
which is generally regarded to have had its origins within the fraternities of Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in the 1950s and '60s, where it has since become part of the social culture of the campus. The original version resembled an actual ping pong game with a net and one or more cups of beer on each side of the table. Eventually, a version without paddles was created, and later the names Beer Pong and Beirut were adopted in some areas of the USA sometime in the 1980s.
Bucknell University
Bucknell University
Bucknell University is a private liberal arts university located alongside the West Branch Susquehanna River in the rolling countryside of Central Pennsylvania in the town of Lewisburg, 30 miles southeast of Williamsport and 60 miles north of Harrisburg. The university consists of the College of...
's student-run newspaper, The Bucknellian, claims Delta Upsilon
Delta Upsilon
Delta Upsilon is the sixth oldest international, all-male, college Greek-letter organization, and is the oldest non-secret fraternity in North America...
fraternity members at Bucknell created "Throw Pong", a game very similar to beer pong, during the 1970s. "Throw Pong" was then brought to Lehigh University
Lehigh University
Lehigh University is a private, co-educational university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. It was established in 1865 by Asa Packer as a four-year technical school, but has grown to include studies in a wide variety of disciplines...
by fraternity brothers who visited Bucknell, and this led to the creation of the version of beer pong that is played today.
In some places Beer Pong refers to the version of the game with paddles, and Beirut to the version without. However, according to a CollegeHumor
CollegeHumor
CollegeHumor is a comedy website owned by InterActiveCorp and based in New York City. The site features daily original comedy videos and articles created by its in-house writing and production team, in addition to user-submitted videos, pictures, articles and links. In early 2009, CollegeHumor's...
survey, beer pong is a more common term than Beirut for the paddle-less game.
The origin of the name "Beirut" is disputed. A 2004 op-ed article in the Daily Princetonian, the student newspaper at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, suggested that the name was possibly coined at Bucknell or Lehigh University around the time of the Lebanese Civil War
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...
, Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
being the capital of Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and scene of much fighting. Some students at Lafayette College
Lafayette College
Lafayette College is a private coeducational liberal arts and engineering college located in Easton, Pennsylvania, USA. The school, founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter,son of General Andrew Porter of Norristown and citizens of Easton, first began holding classes in 1832...
, rivals of Lehigh, insist modern, paddle-less beer pong was invented at their school, but The Lafayette, the college's student newspaper, says there is no proof to back up the assertion.
Setup
Teams
Beer pong is usually played with two teams of two players each, though it can be played with two teams of other numbers of players. Each team begins the game standing at either end of the table behind their rack of cups.Playing field
Although the game is typically played on either a ping pong table or a folding banquet table, enthusiasts may create a personalized table for use by friends and visitors. In general, this will be a plywoodPlywood
Plywood is a type of manufactured timber made from thin sheets of wood veneer. It is one of the most widely used wood products. It is flexible, inexpensive, workable, re-usable, and can usually be locally manufactured...
board cut to proper size, sometimes painted with sports, school, or fraternity symbols and given a liquid-proof coating. Some companies sell tables, and there are companies making portable or inflatable tables. The game can be played on any flat surface, most typically a dining table.
Equipment
The most common cups used are 16 USfloz disposable plastic cups (such as red Solo cups) with ridge-lines which can be used precisely to measure the amount of beer to be poured into the cup. On each side of the table, teams assemble equilateral triangles, with a convergence point focusing on the other team. Games typically use either six, ten, or twelve cups. Each team usually has a separate cup of water as well, used to rinse off the ball. Modern day beer pong has evolved past the ping pong table and on to regulation sized Beer Pong Tables. A regulation size table is 8'x2'x27.5 and is recognized by The World Series of Beer Pong (WSOBP) as being the standard in beer pong table game play.38 mm (1.5 in) or 40 mm (1.6 in) table tennis
Table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight, hollow ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net...
(ping pong) balls are typically used for game play.
Alcohol
An inexpensive pale lagerPale lager
Pale lager is a very pale to golden-coloured beer with a well attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it...
or light beer of 3.2–5% ABV
Alcohol by volume
Alcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in an alcoholic beverage .The ABV standard is used worldwide....
is sometimes preferred because of the large quantities of beer which may be consumed during the course of several games. Sometimes under house rules, there might be cups of other liquors used during the game. For non-drinkers, the game may be played without beer, as is done at Utah State University
Utah State University
Utah State University is a public university located in Logan, Utah. It is a land-grant and space-grant institution and is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities....
, where alcohol is not allowed on campus—root beer
Root beer
Root beer is a carbonated, sweetened beverage, originally made using the root of a sassafras plant as the primary flavor. Root beer, popularized in North America, comes in two forms: alcoholic and soft drink. The historical root beer was analogous to small beer in that the process provided a drink...
is used instead. The game may also be played with water instead of beer, or with cups full of water that players do not drink from, instead using another cup of beer or alcohol. In addition to beer pong, water pong has been banned in Dartmouth dorms due to a possibility of water intoxication
Water intoxication
Water intoxication, also known as water poisoning, is a potentially fatal disturbance in brain functions that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is pushed outside of safe limits by over-consumption of water....
and as a violation of dorm policies. Water is often used in place of beer, but not meant to be consumed.
Game play
Traditionally, the game of beer pong has been played by countless variations of rule sets. In recent years, organizations such as The World Series of Beer Pong have put forth "official" rules. Typically, players abide by a uniform set of "house rules", which are often consistent within one university or region of the country (e.g., "Ivy League rules" or "West Coast rules"), or may vary on a "house-by-house" basis. Number of cups, bouncing, amount of alcohol, the distance shots must be taken from, et cetera, may all vary. All house rules must be either posted or verbally stated and understood by both teams before the game starts. If neither happens previous to the game, the game in progress should be ruled by official beer pong rules.In some house rules, players must immediately drink any cup that has been hit. Failure to do so incurs a penalty, such as drinking more beer or losing the game. Some rule sets allow for "re-racking" (also known as "reforming", "rearranging", "consolidation", and other names), which is a rearrangement of a team's remaining cups after some have been removed. The formations, number of cups, when to rearrange and so on depend on the rule set. For example, a team with three remaining cups may ask the other team to "re-rack" their multiple targets into a single triangle formation.
Some other house rules allow swatting the ball away if it bounces. Others allow players to flick or blow the ball out of the cup if the ball spins around the inner rim, but blowing is often restricted to female players. Other rules state that if a team makes both shots in a round, each player may shoot again, sometimes called a "rollback". In World Series of Beer Pong rules only one repo/rollback is allowed and is a single ball, resulting in a 3 cup maximum that can be made per turn.
Before shooting, teams may dunk the ping pong balls into cups of water in order to wash off the balls. However, research has shown that the wash cups still hold bacteria, such as E. coli
Escherichia coli
Escherichia coli is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms . Most E. coli strains are harmless, but some serotypes can cause serious food poisoning in humans, and are occasionally responsible for product recalls...
. To avoid any illness, many players now put water in the cups instead of beer, and keep a beer on the side that can remain cold. In doing so, it removes the element of getting sick or even drinking any dirt that may transfer from the ball into the cup.
Shot techniques
Some players throw "fastball" style, which uses more of a hard chopping motion to send the ball in a more direct line to the intended target cup. Also, a fastball shot may be favorable if house rules dictate a cup that is knocked over is taken off the table, in which case a fastball can eliminate multiple cups if thrown hard enough.
A "bounce" shot is performed by bouncing the ball toward the cups. Since (depending on house rules) the other team may have the opportunity to swat away a bounced ball, a bounce may be worth more than one cup. In some rule sets, bouncing is not allowed; in others, it is required.
During redemption the miss table rule does not apply.
Winning the game
If the opposing team makes the last cup, the other loses unless they can make either all remaining cups or simply one cup, depending on "house rules"—this is called a rebuttal or redemption. In some rule sets, if the opposing team hits the last cup with both of their balls, no redemption is given to the losing team. If the losing team can hit the redemption shots, then the game is forced into overtime, where 3 cups are used, instead of the normal 6 or 10. Some rules state that if a team does not re-rack, then the opposing team is not allowed redemption shots, and the game is then over immediately after the winning cup is sunk. This rule encourages players to hold off on re-racking until absolutely necessary, or not at all, adding some decision making and strategy to the game.A shutout or "stink bomb" rule is a house rule usually stated before a game or during the game in the midst of a shutout
Shutout
In team sports, a shutout refers to a game in which one team prevents the opposing team from scoring. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketball....
. If the shutout does occur the losing team must do whatever the two teams decided on, such as going streaking
Streaking
Streaking is the act of running nude through a public place.-History:On 5 July 1799, a Friday evening at 7 o'clock, a naked man was arrested at the Mansion House, London, and sent to the Poultry Compter...
or drinking a large quantity of beer.
Depending on house rules, there are also other ways to end the game. Making it into the cup in which has already been made and has beer left in it immediately ends the game. This is also known as death cup. Some players may choose to shoot at the same time in hopes of making it in the same cup and ending the game. Some houses eliminate this by changing the rule to pulling 3 cups instead of ending the game.
Ring of fire or Honeycomb is when you hit middle cup, front cup, and the back corner cups leaving a ring or honeycomb shaped arrangement of cups remaining. After this occurs, the team must make and land the cup in the middle of the comb. If this is achieved the game immediately ends similar to dealth cup
Alternate Versions and Variations
Battleship is related game developed by combining beer pong with the BattleshipBattleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
board game marketed by Milton Bradley
Milton Bradley
Milton Bradley , an American game pioneer, was credited by many with launching the board game industry in North America with Milton Bradley Company....
. In this variation, a grid of 25 cups with 1" of water serves as the "ocean" for a team's boats. The 25 cups, arranged in a 5x5 grid, are the "targets". Teams place their ships by using 2, 3, and 4 pennies in the bottom of each cup in orthogonal lines. This type of placement is meant to mimic the orthogonal peg-board game surface of the Milton Bradley game.
Teams alternate turns, and there can be more than one player on a team. For each turn, each player shoots once and tries to land a ball in a target. If the target contains a penny, all the teams on the "hit" side drink. If the the balls lands in a target and there is no penny inside, the shooter drinks. In both cases the cup is emptied and turned over to reflect targets already hit. Once a complete row or series of pennies has been hit - the row of 2, 3, or 4 pennies - that ship has been sunk. When a team has a hit that causes a ship to be sunk, they receive a repeat turn.
Because there are not as many targets nor as many ships as the original board game of Battleship, the Destroyer, Submarine, Carrier, Battleship, and Cruiser are typically not used, or used interchangeably. Other pop-culture references are more typical, such as Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria (Christopher Columbus' three ships who voyaged to the New World,) or Time Bandit, Cornelia Marie, and Wizard (Ships in the crab fleet of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch.)
Tetris is another related game created at the University of Maryland on May 3, 2008, prior to Art Attack XXV, a concert headlined by Wyclef Jean. The founding occurred at 4702 College Ave. in College Park, MD, then, a Sigma Nu, Delta Phi Chapter satellite house. This variation combines elements of beer pong with the video game Tetris
Tetris
Tetris is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union. It was released on June 6, 1984, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...
developed by Alexey Pajitnov. The inspiration for the game was a house under construction on College Ave., which provided the wood to create the 'wall,' one of the game's distinguishing elements.
Tetris is played by two teams of four players, each paired with a member of the opposing team. The game requires 126 standard red cups, four balls, a full size beer pong table, and 18-24 inch high 'wall' placed in the middle of the table. Each side places 58 cups in 9 alternating rows of 8 and 7 cups, and fills the cups with the appropriate amount of liquid. Also, each team may choose any four 'party' cups to fill completely. The object of the game is to hit each of the other teams cups, and the game is played rapid fire, with pairs keeping track of their own balls. A player may not shoot until he or she has removed, and finished the cup that was previously hit. The same rule applies to party cups which must be similarly finished before shooting.
Instead of 'racking' the cups in a traditional rack, in Tetris, once an entire row has been eliminated by the opposing team, all of the cups in front of that row are re-set in alternating rows of 8 and 7 beginning at the row which was eliminated. Re-setting the cups, and thus moving the last row further from the center of the table, allows players to more easily shoot at the rows of cups originally protected by the 'wall' in the middle of the table.
Once a team has hit the last cup, 4 cups are placed on the back row to determine who will be able to 'rebutt.' Each team member shoots at the cup across the table, and if he or she hits the cup, the opposing team member loses his or her right to 'rebutt.' Those who have a chance to 'rebutt' shoot until they miss. If a game is sent to overtime, 8 cups are placed along the back row, with the same rebuttal rules.
Health effects
The game may have several associated health risks. As with any activity involving alcohol, Beer pong may cause players to become drunken or even intoxicated enough to suffer alcohol poisoning. Also, the supposed cleaning effects of the water "dunk" cup may be offset by bacteria in the cups.Some writers have mentioned beer pong as contributing to "out of control" college drinking.
In early 2009, news sources claimed a recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...
(CDC) stated that beer pong was contributing to the spread of herpes
Herpes simplex
Herpes simplex is a viral disease caused by both Herpes simplex virus type 1 and type 2 . Infection with the herpes virus is categorized into one of several distinct disorders based on the site of infection. Oral herpes, the visible symptoms of which are colloquially called cold sores or fever...
, mononucleosis
Mononucleosis
Mononucleosis , is a disease most commonly caused by the Epstein-Barr virus . The EBV virus affects the lymphocytes- white blood cells that battle infections by attacking antibodies. Mononucleosis can also be caused by Cytomegalovirus , a herpes virus most commonly found in body fluids...
, and other diseases through shared cups. The CDC quickly responded as the CDC had not done such research, however the U.S. National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
(NIH) does suggest avoiding the sharing of eating utensils to prevent the transmission of certain contagious viruses such as herpes.
Legal restrictions
Binge drinking
Binge drinking or heavy episodic drinking is the modern epithet for drinking alcoholic beverages with the primary intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time. It is a kind of purposeful drinking style that is popular in several countries worldwide,...
(see Health Effects above). In Oxford, Ohio
Oxford, Ohio
Oxford is a city in northwestern Butler County, Ohio, United States, in the southwestern portion of the state. It lies in Oxford Township, originally called the College Township. The population was 21,943 at the 2000 census. This college town was founded as a home for Miami University. Oxford...
, where Miami University
Miami University
Miami University is a coeducational public research university located in Oxford, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1809, it is the 10th oldest public university in the United States and the second oldest university in Ohio, founded four years after Ohio University. In its 2012 edition, U.S...
is located, the city council tried to ban the game from being played outdoors, and in Arlington, Virginia and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois bar owners were told to stop allowing the game to be played in their establishments. In the fall of 2007, Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
officially banned all beer pong paraphernalia, such as custom-built tables and the possession of many ping-pong balls.
Time magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
ran an article on July 31, 2008 called "The War Against Beer Pong", noting legal restrictions and bans on the game in college and elsewhere.
In many states, players have taken to placing water in cups in order to hold organized beer pong tournaments legally in bars. Some examples of this can be found in Michigan, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.
Tournaments and leagues
Beer pong tournaments are held in the United States at the local, regional, and national levels.The World Series of Beer Pong
World Series of Beer Pong
The World Series of Beer Pong is the largest Beer pong tournament in the world in number of participants and cash prizes offered. It has been held close to or in Las Vegas since January, 2006.-WSOBP I:...
(WSOBP), hosted by bpong.com, is the largest beer pong tournament in the world. WSOBP IV, held in January 2009 at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...
, Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, had a $50,000 grand prize and attracted over 800 participants from the US and Canada. WSOBP V, held in January 2010, attracted over 1,000 participants, and attracted teams from Ireland, Scotland, Germany and Japan, each of which voiced their aspirations to further the sport in their home countries. The World Beer Pong Tour has stops in various cities and cash prizes as well.
A more common organization of beer pong games are leagues which operate on a local or regional level. Ordinarily, a group of pong enthusiasts will create teams (partnerships) and play weekly against each other. Sometimes, the leagues have websites, rankings and statistics, while others have been started by college students with the goal of intramural competition such as at University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
with the "Isla Vista Beer Pong League", and at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
.
Beer pong in the media
The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and other media outlets have reported on the increase in businesses selling beer pong paraphernalia, such as tables, mats, cups, or clothes. Last Cup: Road to the World Series of Beer Pong is a documentary which follows some competitive players as they prepare for the WSOBP II and ultimately compete against one another for the $20,000 grand prize. This documentary, directed by Dan Lindsay, premiered at the CineVegas
Cinevegas
CineVegas was a film festival held annually at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas that ran from 1999 to 2009, typically in early June. Robin Greenspun serves as the Festival president, and Trevor Groth serves as artistic director. Actor Dennis Hopper is the chairman of the Festival's creative...
film festival on June 13, 2008. WSOBP V attracted further media attention, with writers from Maxim
Maxim (magazine)
Maxim is an international men's magazine based in the United Kingdom and known for its pictorials featuring popular actresses, singers, and female models, sometimes pictured dressed, often pictured scantily dressed but not fully nude....
magazine and ESPN The Magazine
ESPN The Magazine
ESPN The Magazine is a bi-weekly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network in Bristol, Connecticut in the United States. The first issue was published on March 11, 1998....
attending, and it was featured on The Jay Leno Show
The Jay Leno Show
The Jay Leno Show is an American comedy show created by and starring Jay Leno, that aired from September 14, 2009 to February 9, 2010 on NBC following the May 29, 2009 conclusion of Leno's first tenure as host of The Tonight Show...
on January 8, 2010, and also on G4
G4 (TV channel)
G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...
's Attack of the Show!
Attack of the Show!
Attack of the Show! is an American live television program shown weeknights on G4, G4 Canada and Fuel TV in Australia. The program is hosted by Kevin Pereira and Candace Bailey...
on January 11, 2010. Rick Reilly
Rick Reilly
Richard "Rick" Paul Reilly is an American sportswriter. Long known for being the "back page" columnist for Sports Illustrated, Reilly moved to ESPN on June 1, 2008 where he is a featured columnist for ESPN.com and wrote the back page column for ESPN the Magazine...
wrote an entire column about The World Series of Beer Pong IV for ESPN The Magazine.
The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
cited the game and other drinking games as a factor in deaths of college students.
Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine recently had an article on the popularity of beer pong and posted a video on their website. In both, players claimed beer pong was a sport, rather than a game—similar to billiards
Billiards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
and darts
Darts
Darts is a form of throwing game where darts are thrown at a circular target fixed to a wall. Though various boards and games have been used in the past, the term "darts" usually now refers to a standardised game involving a specific board design and set of rules...
.
The game has been a recurring segment on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jimmy Fallon on NBC. The show premiered on March 2, 2009, as the third incarnation of the Late Night franchise originated by David Letterman....
, with host Fallon playing against female celebrity guests such as Betty White
Betty White
Betty White Ludden , better known as Betty White, is an American actress, comedienne, singer, author, and former game show personality. With a career spanning seven decades since 1939, she is best known to modern audiences for her television roles as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and...
, Serena Williams
Serena Williams
Serena Jameka Williams is an American professional tennis player and a former world no. 1. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked her world no. 1 in singles on five separate occasions. She became the world no. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002 and regained this ranking for the fifth time on...
, Anna Kournikova
Anna Kournikova
Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova is a Russian retired professional tennis player. Her beauty and celebrity status made her one of the best known tennis stars worldwide, despite the fact that she never won a WTA singles title. At the peak of her fame, fans looking for images of Kournikova made her name...
, Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron is a South African actress, film producer and former fashion model.She rose to fame in the late 1990s following her roles in 2 Days in the Valley, Mighty Joe Young, The Devil's Advocate and The Cider House Rules...
and Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba
Jessica Marie Alba is an American television and film actress. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack . Alba rose to prominence as the lead actress in the television series Dark Angel...
.
The Colbert Report featured a segment on the CDC study hoax.
Road Trip: Beer Pong
Road Trip: Beer Pong
Road Trip: Beer Pong is a 2010 direct-to-DVD sequel to the 2000 comedy film Road Trip and directed by Steve Rash. The only original cast members to return for the sequel were DJ Qualls and Rhoda Griffis. The film was produced by Paramount Famous Productions as Paramount Pictures having acquired...
, a sequel to 2000 comedy Road Trip, featured the game prominently. Agnes Scott College
Agnes Scott College
Agnes Scott College is a private undergraduate college in the United States. Agnes Scott's campus lies in downtown Decatur, Georgia, nestled inside the perimeter of the bustling metro-Atlanta area....
, where most of the movie was filmed, did not want to be listed in the credits after complaints from students.
Characters in other TV shows have played it as well, such as Greek
Greek (TV series)
Greek is an American comedy-drama television series, which follows students of the fictional Cyprus-Rhodes University , located in Ohio, who participate in the school's Greek system...
, Weeds
Weeds (TV series)
Weeds is an American television comedy created by Jenji Kohan and produced by Tilted Productions in association with Lionsgate Television. The central character is Nancy Botwin , a widowed mother of two boys who begins selling marijuana to support her family after her husband dies suddenly of a...
, and Dave Attell
Dave Attell
Dave Attell is an American stand-up comedian and the host of Comedy Central's Insomniac with Dave Attell and The Gong Show with Dave Attell.-Stand-up beginning:...
and Bree Olson
Bree Olson
Rachel Marie Oberlin , known by the stage name of Bree Olson, is an American pornographic actress and Penthouse Pet.-Early life:...
on the series premiere of Tosh.0
Tosh.0
Tosh.0 is an American television series hosted by comedian Daniel Tosh, who provides sarcastic commentary on online video clips, society, celebrities, and other parts of popular culture.-History:...
.
In the movie Beerfest
Beerfest
Beerfest is a 2006 beer-themed comedy film by the comedy group Broken Lizard. Along with the regular members of Broken Lizard, other actors who appear in the movie include Will Forte, M. C. Gainey, Cloris Leachman, Kendra C...
, they had the original version of beer pong with paddles in it. Also they had the non paddle version, calling it Beirut.
Beer Pong is also referred to in the song "I Like It Like That" by Charra Rae in the Interlude of the song
Publishing
On August 29, 2009, Chronicle BooksChronicle Books
Chronicle Books is a San Francisco-based American publisher of books for adults and children.The company was established in 1968 by Phelps Dewey, an executive with Chronicle Publishing Company, then-publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1999 it was bought by Nion McEvoy, great-grandson of...
published The Book of Beer Pong, a 200 page fully illustrated guide to the game.
Bud pong
Bud pong was the branded version of beer pong that brewer Anheuser-BuschAnheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...
said involved the drinking of water, not Budweiser
Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch)
Budweiser is a 5.0% abv American-style lager introduced in 1876 by Adolphus Busch and one of the highest selling beers in the United States. It is made with up to 30% rice in addition to hops and barley malt. Budweiser is produced in various breweries located around the world...
or any other beer. In the summer of 2005, the company began marketing "bud pong" kits to its distributors. Francine I. Katz, vice president for communications and consumer affairs, was reported in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
as saying that bud pong was not intended for underage drinkers because promotions were held in bars, not on campuses. And it did not promote binge drinking, she said, because official rules call for water to be used, not beer.
The New York Times quoted a bartender at a club near Clemson University
Clemson University
Clemson University is an American public, coeducational, land-grant, sea-grant, research university located in Clemson, South Carolina, United States....
as saying she had worked at several bud pong events and had "never seen anyone playing with water. It's always beer. It's just like any other beer pong."
Some expressed incredulity at Anheuser-Busch's public statements. Henry Wechsler, director of the College Alcohol Study at the Harvard School of Public Health
Harvard School of Public Health
The Harvard School of Public Health is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University, located in the Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill, which is next to Harvard Medical School. HSPH is considered a significant school focusing on health in the...
, said: "Why would alcohol companies promote games that involve drinking water? It's preposterous," while advertising news site Adjab opined that "someone playing bud pong with water is about as likely as a teenage kid using the rolling paper he bought at the convenience store to smoke tobacco."
However, the practice of playing with water has become increasingly common on college campuses, due to the cost saving effects. Instead of drinking the beer from a glass each time a player sinks a shot, the player simply takes a shot of liquor or a sip from their own drink each time the opposing team scores. This is usually done when there isn't enough beer to accommodate a large number of games during the party.
Video games
In July 2008, JV GamesJV Games
JV Games is an American video game developer based in Las Vegas, Nevada. They have developed a number of titles including James Bond 007: Nightfire for Game Boy Advance, as well as Pong Toss! Frat Party Games and Incoming! for WiiWare....
Inc. released a downloadable video game for the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
console called Frat Party Games: Beer Pong. After much outrage by parent and university groups, the game was renamed Frat Party Games: Pong Toss
Frat Party Games: Pong Toss
Pong Toss! Frat Party Games, known in Europe as Beer Pong! Frat Party Games, is a sports/party video game developed by JV Games for the Wii's WiiWare digital distribution service, and was first released in North America in 2008, and in Europe the following year...
and all references to alcohol were removed.