Beer Pong: Slap-Back Style

The rules:

• Teams of two stand at opposite sides of a table
• At the edge of each side of the table, the teams stack ten plastic cups in a triangular formation and fill them with a total of four beers
• The players take turns throwing a ping pong ball at the cups; if it lands in a cup, the opposing team must remove the cup and drink the beer
• If the ball is bounced into a cup, the opposing team must remove and drink two cups
• If both players land their ball in the same cup, the opposing team must drink and remove three cups
• Each team is allowed two “reracks,” which involve forcing the other team to rearrange the remaining cups in any formation
• Slap-back rules: if a ball hits the table, the team can smack the ball back at the opposing team. If the ball hits an opposing player, he/she must chug an entire beer. However, if the opposing player catches the ball, the player who hit the ball must chug an entire beer.
• The game ends when there are no cups remaining

Mike Searles learned the game of Beer Pong early in his college years; however, he learned the “slap-back” edition less than a year ago. He describes Beer Pong as one of the most popular games in college, and has participated in many tournaments that include as many as 32 teams. While the game of Beer Pong is already very competitive, he claims that “slap-back” is more competitive than many sports games he has played in. In Beer Pong, players generally drink about two beers per game, but he claims to have drunk as many as six beers in a game playing “slap-back.”

Beer Pong, in its most basic form, requires more coordination than most drinking games; however, the addition of the slap rules adds a very physical, aggressive component to the game. In reality, forcing drunken people to slap balls at each other seems like a recipe for disaster, since alcohol already fosters belligerence. Although popular amongst everyone, these physically derived drinking games are trademarks of fraternities and are generally more common amongst boys. Since boys tend to enjoy friendly competition, it is no surprise that adding more physical rules to Beer Pong has become common.