Beer pong used to be regulated to dorm rooms and keg houses. Not anymore.
“People take Beer Pong more seriously these days,” says Josh Heppel of Gulf Coast Beer Pong. “It used to be that you played with the cup full of beer and everyone was getting trashed. Now it’s become more mainstream, to the point where there’s a $50,000 tournament in Las Vegas and a Masters of Beer Pong tournament for $100,000 set to take place in July.”
Whether you’re heading to Vegas to enter a tournament or simply want to humiliate your friends at parties, these tips will help you become a better beer pong player.
#1. CHOOSE YOUR PARTNER WISELY
Like Riggs and Murtaugh, a dependable partner has your back and will be there to pick up the slack when you can’t sink a shot. “When you play competitive beer pong a good partner is the most valuable thing you can have,” Heppel says. “Once I was on fire all night, hitting seven cups a game … until we got to the finals. Then I went cold. My partner stepped up and hit six cups in the final game, including the last cup to win the tournament for us.”
#2. DEVISE A GAME PLAN
A standard beer pong rack is comprised of 10 cups — a row of one, a row of two, then rows of three and four. Before you step up to the table, make sure you’ve developed a system for how to land your ball in the cup. Heppel says it helps to break down the rack into a series of triangles, focusing on one three-cup cluster at a time. “If you aim anywhere in that three-cup triangle, five to seven times out of ten you’re going to make something,” he says.
#3. CONTROL HOW MUCH YOU DRINK
Contrary to popular belief, getting wasted does not generally improve your game. But since making every shot isn’t likely, Heppel suggests being strict with the amount of beer you pour into each cup. Aim to fill each cup to the quarter-full mark with light beer, making one rack the equivalent of about two beers. But, before you start drinking beer, check its expiration date and learn how to recognize when the beer has gone bad.
#4. TALK TRASH
Trash talking distracts your opponents. If they’re thinking about how to respond to you instead of where to place their shot, you have the momentum swinging in your favor. With friends, you’ll want to be mindful of how deep your “Yo Mama” jokes cut. In tournaments where money is on the line, all bets are off. “I heard about a guy who went to play in Vegas, and his grandmother had died two weeks before the tournament,” Heppel tells us. “One of the teams he was playing had printed out a picture of her off of Facebook and would hold it up whenever he shot.”
#5. KNOW THE HOUSE RULES
Yes, the object of every beer pong game is to get the ball into the cup. But house rules differ, and the more you know about the house rules, the more methods you can use to score. Here are some questions to ask:
- Can you bounce it in?
- Can you swat bounces?
- Can you blow the ball out of the cup before it hits the liquid?
- If you make three shots in a row do you continue to shoot until you miss?
- Does the opposing team have to finish their cups of beer before taking their shots?
- If you sink two balls in the same cup does that end the game?
