The obvious stuff
On your turn, you and a partner shoot ping pong balls and attempt to land it in your opposition’s cups from the other side of a table. If your team lands a ball in a cup, that cup is ‘sunk’, but the ball stays in place until the end of your turn. At the end of your turn, your opposition drinks and removes the cups that have been sunk, plus any others they owe from additional rules. First team to sink all cups, wins!
Starting the Game
- Choose a partner and two people to play against.
- Randomise two countries to play as (here’s the link).
- Nominate a team captain to paper/scissors/rock (or an agreed-upon method) against the opposition’s captain. The winner either chooses the country they want to play as, or chooses to shoot first. The loser decides the leftover choice.
- Both teams should read and understand both countries’ abilities before starting, to remove any confusion during playtime.
- Set up the game by placing 10 cups in a 4-3-2-1 triangle, or as directed by your country’s ability, and fill each cup with ~1/3 (~125ml) of your drink of choice. Ensure there are no gaps between the rims of any cups, and no cups overlap each other.
- Once both teams are ready, the game may start!
Below is a list of all the shots you can perform on your turn. Your elbows must be behind the edge of the table for the shot to be considered legal.
Types of shots you can perform on your turn
| Shot Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Normal/Regular Shot | This should be obvious. A regular beer pong shot. Land it in a cup to make the opposition drink. AKA arc ball, fast ball, etc. |
| Bounce Shot | If you shoot the ball and it bounces on the table before entering a cup, your opposition must drink the cup it entered, and an additional of their choosing. However, after bouncing, an opponent can defend and swipe the ball away. If your opponent interferes with the ball before it bounces (either accidentally or on purpose), they must remove one of their own cups as punishment. |
| Trick Shot | AKA rebounds. If you shoot a ball and it happens to bounce back towards you, your team can grab it and be awarded a trick shot. You must catch it before it hits the ground. A trick shot must be a difficult shot that would make dude perfect proud (e.g. bounce it off the roof). Eyes closed is not difficult. If it goes in, the opposition must drink that cup. Like normal, it can be defended if it bounces on the table. A trick shot can also lead to a ‘balls back’ or ‘grenade’ if other cups were previously sunk that turn. If you choose to take your regular turn as a trick shot, and it lands in a cup, the defending team must drink an additional cup of their choosing (two cups total). Note: If you get a trick shot in, you can’t re-use it. Find a new trick shot. |
| Rim Shot | If the ball you shoot bounces/rolls across a rim of one cup before landing in a different cup, all cups it touches along the way must also be drunk. Similar to a bounce shot, this counts for nothing if the ball does not sink a cup, and can be defended after bouncing on the cup rim. |
| Balls Back | If your team lands ALL of your shots (it can sometimes be more than 2 with abilities) in separate cups, this counts as balls back. All cups are drunk by the opposition, and your team receives two more shots (even if more than two balls were sunk initially). For the purpose of abilities, this does not count as skipping the opposition’s turn, rather, a continuation of your turn. If you then sink both of these balls, the cups are removed, and balls back is awarded again. If your team sinks the opposition’s final cups, and a balls back is awarded but no cups are left on the table, you automatically win with no redemption. If your country ability grants you three balls on your turn, and you sink two out of three shots (both land in the same cup), you do not receive balls back or a grenade, and only one cup is drunk. If all three balls are sunk (but two of them are in the same cup), balls back is awarded. |
| Grenade | AKA Explosion. If your team lands ALL of your shots in the same cup, this counts as a grenade. This cup, and all cups that are directly adjacent to it, must be drunk. No ‘balls back’ is given for a grenade. If a ball bounces off another ball that is already in a cup (i.e., does not stay in the same cup), a grenade is not awarded (balls back can be awarded, however). |
Standard Base Game Rules (the stuff you should be used to)
Re-racks: If you land enough shots to reduce your opposition’s cups down to a triangle number (3, 6, 10), you may call for a re-rack at the start of your turn. The opposition must re-arrange their cups into a triangle formation. If one of your team members take a shot before announcing the re-rack, you must wait until the start of your next turn.
Re-set: If a cup is knocked out of position, you may request it is shuffled back into the position it moved from.
Redemption: AKA Rebuttal. When you sink a ball in your opposition’s final cup, your opposition receives a redemption to try continue the game. The amount of redemption shots they receive is equal to the amount of shots you took to sink the final cup. More simply, if you shoot twice, then your opposition has two attempts in return. If you sink all of your opposition’s cups but haven’t used all of your allocated shots (and redemption is triggered), you may ‘forfeit’ your remaining shots, and in rturn only give your opposition one redemption attempt. Alternatively, you can shoot and if it goes in, your opposition get no attempts and lose immediately. Similarly, if the opponent has multiple cups left and you land a ‘grenade’ or ‘balls back’ that wipes out all your opposition’s cups, the game is immediately over and your opposition gets no redemption attempts.
If your opposition lands a redemption shot, the game continues, and you take another turn. Effectively, your opponent skips their turn. If your opponent does not land a redemption shot, all remaining game cups on the table are drunk by the defensive team, unless the offensive team does not wish to share their drinks (e.g. winner stays on).
The Golden Rule: Don’t be a dick. If there is confusion during the game over the rules, decide a fair outcome between the teams, or have a spectator decide for you if you can’t. Don’t hog the table fighting over a technicality.
Optional Rules (The extras – feel free to include these depending on where you live)
| Game Rule | Description |
|---|---|
| Airball | AKA Overs. If the opposition shoots and misses the table completely, your team may shout ‘airball’, and all remaining shots the opposition have must be forfeited. |
| Balling Your Own Cups | If you drop a ball into your own cup (or slap it in, your trick shot falls in, etc.), it must be drunk immediately and you do not get to re-shoot. |
| Blowing the Ball | The defending team may blow a ball out of the cup if it is spinning and has not yet touched the liquid in the cup. If it is blown out of the cup, is dry (the opposition or a spectator can confirm this), and does not enter another cup it is successfully defended. If it enters another cup, it counts for two and the defending team must drink both cups. Some also allow using fingers to scoop the ball out. |
| Eyes | Instead of paper/scissors/rock to start the game, both teams can use skill to see who goes first. Set up 10 cups as normal and choose one person from each team. While maintaining eye contact, shoot the ball. If both (or neither) player sinks a shot, their partners then shoots with the same method. This continues until only one person gets a shot in, and they can either choose the country, or choose to shoot first. |
| Bitch Cup | AKA Death cup. If the game cups you sink are not drunk by your opposition before your next turn, and instead they hold or set aside a cup with the liquid they should have drunk, you may shoot for this ‘Bitch Cup.’ If you sink it in this cup, the game is immediately over and you win with no redemption. Drink your cups. |
| No Refills | If you hit a cup with a ball and it falls over, this counts as going in and the opposition must remove it from the game. This prevents filling the cups with less liquid than required. However, if the ball is ditched to deliberately knock over the cup (AKA Baseball), the shot does not count, can be refilled and the shooter does not get to re-shoot. If there is confusion on the nature of the shot, consult a spectator, or re-take the shot. If you knock over your own cups (such as, attempting to defend a bounce shot and missing) they are not refilled. |
| Celebrity Shot | On your turn, you may invite a spectator to take one of your team’s shots. No additional benefit is given if this shot is landed – this rule is used to keep the game moving during bathroom breaks, or to keep the audience engaged. |
Rules we don’t recommend (as they can be unbalanced, or just aren’t possible with some setups). Keep these in games of regular pong, unless you think you know better than us.
| Game Rule | Description |
|---|---|
| Heating Up | If a player sinks a cup two turns in a row, they may annouce they are ‘heating up’. If they sink a third cup in a row, they may shoot continuously until they miss. |
| Alternative Re-racks | Instead of triangle numbers, you may choose to re-rack your opposition’s cups into any shape of your choosing. For a 10-cup game, this is ususally done twice. Further, some rules allow for a re-rack if only one cup remains to centre it at the back of the table. |
| Island | Once per game, each player may choose a cup on the opposition’s side that is by itself (touching no other cups), and call island. On this turn, if this player sink that cup, the opposition must drink that cup, and one of their choosing. |
| Shoot-til-you-miss | Redemption can also be played as shoot-till-you-miss, where you must continue sinking cups until all of the opposition’s cups are gone, in order to not lose. |
| Ring of Fire | If you sink the centre cup and all three corner cups, leaving a ring of cups, your team automatically wins with no redemption. |
| King Me/Miracle | If you land a ball on top of three cups, the game is automatically over. |
Final Note: Your country match-up may seem unbalanced at times. That’s part of the game – you won’t always get gifted the best countries.
Plus, you might just suck. Did you try being better?