The Aztecs had spiritual ball games, games with physical demonstrations of dedication and a struggle for collective triumph that remains at the heart of our notions of sport. In the 3,000 years since, we have streamlined these core concepts in FIFA 23 and beer pong. But I’m not complaining. I think it’s time for our definition of serious games to change.
Although we commemorate professional sports with billions of dollars and stadiums, and reward hardcore gaming with billions of dollars and Comic Con, simpler pleasures like beer pong go unrecognized in the “game that isn’t.” not really a game “. But our laid-back weekend bacchanalia also deserves credit – a cool two Allagash Whites provides the optimal state of play, anyway. In pursuit of this, I spoke to two beer pong champions, CEO of Pro Beer Sports Eric Kutche and based in the UK Twitch Streamer Bex Donaldon how to master beer pong, a fellowship ritual that most people have performed at least once in a happy, messy haze.
What is beer pong?
We should establish the ground rules of the game before going into details, although there are many variations depending on in which country you are and how creatively your friends want to get drunk. This is the bottom line:
- There are two teams of two
- Each team places 10 quarter-full cups, ideally Solo red, in a pyramid shape at opposite ends of a table
- You alternate with your opponent, get two turns to land a ping pong ball in their cup and eliminate them. Your opponent must swallow their eliminated cups.
- If your team lands both of your shots, the ping pong balls are “knocked back” and you receive two additional chances to sink your ball into an enemy cup
- When all the cups of a team are exhausted, the game is over
But your path to pong greatness is just beginning, young bar hopper.
1. Choose your cup and focus on it
Kutche’s love affair with beer pong started like any other fairy tale, in college. “I’ve always been one of the best players wherever I’ve played,” he said. “I trained all the time because my group of friends were playing so much and I wanted to win.”
Eventually, Kutche and his friends searched for a bigger arena. “My friends and I always wished we could compete in competitive beer pong tournaments, but there just wasn’t much,” he said. They created Pro Beer Sports, which currently hosts weekly Beerlympics and beer pong tournaments with the goal of turning the game from perhaps understated into something more serious, like esports has done to video games.
“I call our version of drinking games ‘bSports’ because we play the games at the highest level,” he said. “We’re going to bring beer pong to ESPN.”
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Get into that fighter mindset with Kutche’s first tip. “Always shoot a specific cut,” he said. “If you want to be a real beer pong master, practice hitting the last cup. If you can hit the last cup in three shots, you’ll win most of your beer pong games.
2. Watch your arm
There are three common beer pong throws: a graceful arc, a zingy fastball, or a simple nonchalant bounce off the table. Kutche loves style and grace.
“The best shots are the ones that go through the air,” he said. “If you could trace the flight of the bullet after it was fired, it should look more like a rainbow than a straight line.”
To help you achieve that nice angle, “when shooting, keep your arm parallel to the table so your arm makes a 90-degree angle to your body,” Kutche says.
Like Kutche, Bex Donald discovered beer pong in college. Playing well “came pretty naturally,” she said, “I competed in shot put in high school, so I think the skills transferred a bit, and as a player, I think my goal helped in real life.”
She eventually ran a part-time nightclub’s beer pong table and earned “a few hundred pounds worth of drinks over the years”.
For her, throwing beer pong is an individualized pursuit. “Find your balance in your stance and pose that you’re comfortable with and it will help direct your winning shots,” she said.
3. Have the right attitude
“The most important rule of beer pong is to have fun!” Kutch said. Playing any game for the first time can feel daunting, especially in a party-oriented drinking game that coming-of-age movies may have always labeled you cool kids only.
But you shouldn’t “take the game too seriously,” Kutche said. “Everyone wins in a game of beer pong. I’ve seen so many people become friends, even couples, after meeting at the beer pong table.
Donald echoed the statement. “Don’t be pressured by your opponents or your team, take your time and concentrate,” she said. “Even the pros miss a few shots, but practice makes perfect.”
Donald also introduced me to an important metric, something she calls the PPIP: Peak Performance Inebriation Point.
“It’s the amount of drinks that causes you to gain enough confidence but not enough to lose focus when participating in bar games,” she said. “Mine is two and a half to three pints.”
4. Think water instead of beer
“A lot of people think of socializing and binge drinking when they think of beer pong, but Pro Beer Sports changes that perspective by treating beer pong and other drinking games as sports,” Kutche said. . “We play with water in mugs because I lived through the era of beer in mugs and looking back it was disgusting.”
I also play with water. But if you’re ready to hit the jackpot, you should take it all the way. Donald suggests players learn to drink beer well so “it doesn’t distract you from the game at hand”.
“Some beer pong facilities will have lukewarm, flat, coarse beer. Unfortunately, it is a danger of the sport,” she said. “A little tip I have is to stick my little finger out while I’m drinking and looking at it, almost like I’m looking at the horizon to avoid motion sickness. It helps.
After internalizing all these tips, I, someone who is very good at beer pong, decided to put it to the test… by playing iMessage, Game Pigeon’s version of the game called Cup-Pong. It’s far from a perfect substitute, I know, but it was my best, cleanest option at 12:00 on a Monday afternoon. Sober, unless you count the leftover rigatoni with vodka sauce that I keep picking up.
Red cups, rainbow bows, and peer pressure were ping-ponging in my head. I was nervous at first, knowing that I was a wildly inconsistent iPhone-fingered sportswoman.
Choose a cup. Shoot in a bow, I reminded myself. Incredibly, I won the game for the first time, so I can confirm that these tips work for both real and virtual cups. Next time I’ll be playing with Mark Zuckerberg in a 6D simulation of Farmville.
But when you find yourself at an IRL beer pong table, remember these tips and try to enjoy it as an easy bacchanalia moment. The low-stakes games we constantly create throughout history — like beer pong, like iMessage volleys — aren’t really about winning, they’re just about enjoying playing.
#Beer #Pong #Champion #Pros