Tag Archives: drinking games

Captain Dickhead

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: English

We call it Captain Dickhead. I’ve also heard people call it King’s Cup, but we always call it Captain Dickhead.

So there’s one can in the middle, usually a beer can, but something with a tab is essential. And 52 cards are spread in a circle around. Continuous circle, cause the circle has to be connected at all points. and the way it goes, everyone sits in a circle around the can and each person takes a turn drawing a card and each card have specific meanings.

Ok so king is categories and the way that works is the person who drew the king will say a category like “dogs” or “types of beer’ and then they’ll say something like ‘labradoodles’ and everyone has in the circle has to say something that fits in to the category. So the first person that takes too long to repeats something thats already been said has to take a drink.

Queen is question master so if you pull a queen you put it down in front of you and then if you ask anyone else playing the game a question and they answer it as long as you have the queen they have to take a drink…BUT if they ask you a question and you answer it then you have to take a drink and you give them the queen. So the queen gets passed around until a new queen is drawn… once a new queen is drawn it gets stuck under the tab of the can, of the beer. So every card, once it gets played, get put under the tab and then whoever cracks the tab has to drink the whole beer or whatever you put in the middle, and then you just sub in the new one. Also, if you pull a card and it breaks the circle you have to drink.

So we do Jack as ‘social’, so for social everyone has to take a drink, it’s just like we all cheers and drink. 

10 is waterfall, so the way waterfall works is whoever drew the 10, they start drinking then everyone else in the group starts drinking at the same time. So once the person that drew the 10 stops drinking then the person to their left can stop drinking, and then once that stops the person to their left can stop and on and on.

So whoever’s to the right of you when you have the ten gets screwed over because they have to drink a bunch.

Nine is rhyme, you have to say a word like “butt” and then everyone goes around the circle and says a word that rhymes with the word and when someone can’t think of a rhyme or repeats something thats already been said and whoever loses then they have to drink.

Eight is date that means you pick someone else in the circle and say “youre gonna be my date” and then whenever they have to drink because of one of the other cards then you also have to drink and it goes both ways. So once

Seven is heaven, so basically when you draw a seven the first thing you have to do it is stick your hands up in the air, and then everyone else has to stick their hands up in the air as fast as possible and the last person to do it has to drink.

Six is dicks, so all the guys take a drink

Five is slap the table – the last person to slap the table has to drink

Four is whores, so all the women have to drink

Three is me, so whoever drew the card has to drink

Two is you, so you get to pick someone to drink

And then Ace means youre Captain Dickhead, thats the titular card. So when you draw an Ace you lick it and you stick it to your forehead, like you slap it up against your forehead and as long as the Ace stays stuck to youre forehead, youre God. You can break all the rules, like you can say “Hey James, take a drink” and he has to do it. If you have to drink and you don’t want to, you can just pass and not take a drink. The same goes for rhyme or any of the other games, you can pretty much just play however you want to play.

I learned it from some friends in Louisiana, and we usually play at parties and stuff but I’ve also seen a lot of variations since I went to college. Ive talked to a lot of people about it, and they usually don’t recognize it by the name but they recognize it once it starts playing.

I was probably 15 or 16 when I first learned it, we usually play it at parties and stuff when we’re trying to get drunk because it makes you drink a lot. Its a heavily….heavily…yeah it makes you drink a ton. So usually like small groups no more than 8, usually with 8 or less we’ll play it and…yeah. It’s great. We like to just do it to get drunk and its something to do ya know, something to pass the time.”

This card game has a number of variations, and seems to change depending on the group playing it.

Bitch Card – A Drinking Game

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 21
Occupation: University Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: March 22, 2019
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Item:

M: So we use the.. the poker card, and like you use like, possibly two or three packet or pack of the.. the poker card and you make a ring like, here’s one cup [gestures to a cup on the table] and then you make the poker card a circle and this in the center [gestures again to the cup] and everyone like, uh, in order to take a card.  So, uh, every- every number has different meaning, and possibly like, so for the- for the ‘A’- for- for the ‘1’, number 1, you can point at [name] and let him to have a shot or drink a shot.

Q: So it was a whole deck of cards?

M: Yeah like, several.  Several.  And like when you- when you make a ‘K’, then you can pour, like, pour some possibly the shot or possibly the orange juice or milk or something like, just liquid

Q: Oh into the center cup

M: Yeah, the center cup.  So for the first, second, and third ‘K’, you just pour it.  The fourth one, you drink it.  Yeah, and every number has different rules.  Like, like for the number 2, like you will be the.. whore and if there’s someone like, he has to take the drink, then he can order you to drink with him together.

Q: So if you pull the number, then you do the action.

M: Yeah, like when you take the num- take the card, you will follow the number.  You follow the rule according to the number.

Q: Was there a name for the game?

M: It’s called like, bitch card [laughs]

 

Context:

I collected this piece while hanging out with friends and we began talking about the games we knew from our childhood and school-age years.  The conversation progressed to games we know now, particularly drinking games, such as the one the informant described above.  The informant is a student of the University of Southern California and actually learned this game from her peers at the university last semester.

 

Analysis:

Games establish our identities in certain ways, including our group identities are revealed by the games we know and our individual identities are revealed by the games we choose to play and how we choose to engage in them.  Drinking games, like the bitch card game collected above, albeit riskier than children’s games, for example, are no exception to this.  Furthermore, they are no exception to the wide variety in types of games, like card games or dice games.  Most popular among college students and young adults, often times drinking games are initiated to foster the interactions of a group and facilitate the formation of group identity – even if that group is specific to a particular time and place and may be temporary – because they get people to start drinking and letting loose.  On the flip side, drinking games can also alienate those who choose not to participate, but this is common amongst all games and not just restricted to drinking games.  Even worse is the risk of personal vulnerability that can result from a drinking game gone overboard.

All of the analysis that can be applied to games can be extended to drinking games.  Since the bitch card game is purely based on luck of the draw, there is no learning or knowledge curve that would place an individual at a significant disadvantage.  The game allows for variation as well in the card assignments; a bit of internet searching revealed several different versions of the game where the card action assignments were different from the few that were described by the informant.  What appears to be a constant, though, is the rule regarding drawing Kings and the King’s cup, most likely because the center cup is the focal point of the game.  Though drinking games can be interpreted in many of the same ways as other games, the significant point to consider is the addition of alcohol because it adds on a much greater sense of risk.  There is a physical risk and maybe even a social risk like when bad drinking stories go viral, and these things can significantly affect how and why people choose to interact with drinking games.