As I’ve made painfully clear in a number of this website’s columns, my fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, plays Beer Pong. Regulation games are played to 21 points, between 2 teams of 2 players on a ping-pong-sized, wooden, metal-trimmed table using four wooden-block paddles, four plastic cups of beer, a wooden dividing “net,” and an orange 3-Star ping pong ball.
I thought it would be helpful to, once and for all, definitively outline the rules and terms to describe the events of that glorious game.
Section I: Terminology
Rally/Volley: After the serve, teams alternate striking the ball onto the opposing team’s side of the table.
Hit: Striking an opponents’ cup during a volley in a way that ends the volley (i.e. the shot is not saved by the opposing team).
Sink: Getting the ball into one of the opponents’ cups during a volley.
Save: Immediately after the ball strikes a team’s cup, allowing for only one bounce on the table or doobie rack, the player whose turn it is may attempt a subsequent return called a save. If the defender is able to return the ball back to the opposition’s side of the table, the rally is to be continued.
Throw-Save: Throwing one’s paddle to save a hit.
Serve: To begin a point, a player serves by striking the ball with his paddle so that the ball makes contact with his own side once, immediately followed by contact with the opposing side.
Rebuttal: A beirut-style throw shot at an opponent’s cup, occurring exclusively in response to an opponent’s Sink or successful Rebuttal.
Doobie: Slang for Redo, this is when the ball makes contact with the metal edge of the table during a volley.
UFE : An Unforced Error made by a player, typically either by hitting the ball off the table or by hitting the ceiling.
Sip: One-fifth of one beer.
Save-is-a-Save: An unreturned Save constitutes one point, even if that Save does not itself result in a Hit or a Sink. In Pong, this concept is describes as a Save is a Save.
Layup: If a player shoots the ball far short of the cup, the subsequent return is often referred to as a Layup.
Hard: Scores are often shortened when announced. The term Hard indicates that the score of the serving team is 10 or more, while the score of the receiving team is less than 10 (e.g., if the serving team has 14 and the receiving team has 9, the score might be announced “Four Nine Hard”).
Soft: The term Soft indicates that the score of the serving team is less than 10, while the score of the receiving team is 10 or more (e.g., if the serving team has 9 and the receiving team has 14, the score might be announced “Nine Four Soft”).
Low: The term Low indicates the score of both teams is less than 10 (e.g., if the serving team has 6 and the receiving team has 4, the score might be announced “Six Four Low”).
High: The term High indicates the score of both teams is 10 or more (e.g., if both the serving and receiving team have 10 points, the score might be announced “Zeros High” or “Zero Zero High”).
Section II: Basic Rules
1. Pong is a Gentleman’s game. Be civil. Don’t intentionally put spin on the ball. Hit it up.
2. Cups are placed in each of the table’s four corners, roughly 6 inches / a paddle’s length from the two closest edges of the table. Each player drinks out of one cup.
3. The first team to reach 21 points wins the game.
4. General rallies begin by a player Serving diagonally across the table (from Left to Right or Right to Left) at an opponent’s cup, and then the players rally back and forth on the same side of the table (from Right to Right or Left to Left) until a point is scored or reset.
5. Players on each team must alternate between shot attempts under every circumstance.
Section III: Scoring Rules
1. Team A scores one point when:
a. Team A Sinks
b. Team A Hits
c. Team A saves Team B’s Hit and that Save is not returned (i.e., Save-is-a-Save)
d. Team B hits or serves the ball such that the ball does not reach the opponents’ side of the table (e.g., shoots the ball off the table)
e. Team B hits the ceiling (or commits any other type of UFE)
Section IV: Doobies
Regulation pong tables are edged with a thin metal trim, referred to as the “Doobie Rack.” If the ball strikes the Doobie Rack, this triggers the possibility of resetting the point (except for on a Save, as described below). This does not, however, necessitate the resetting of the point; instead, whether or not the point is (a) reset or (b) continued is up to the discretion of the team who is playing on the side on which the Doobie occurs.
For instance, if Team A’s shot hits the Doobie Rack on Team B’s side of the table, then Team B may elect to either continue or reset the rally. Team B can reset the rally in any way they see fit (e.g., catching the ball, letting it fall to the ground, etc.). If Team B attempts to return the shot anyway, but does not do so successfully (e.g., they hit the ball off the table), the rally is reset.
However, if Team B decides to continue the rally, and successfully returns the ball to Team A’s side of the table, the ball and the rally are considered live. Team A is not able to decide that the point should be reset; their doing so is counted as a UFE, and results in a point for Team B.
The only situations when Doobie rules are different are during a Save or a Save-is-a-Save. If Team A hits Team B’s cup, and the ball bounces on Team B’s Doobie Rack, Team B must save the ball back to Team A’s side or will lose the point; Team B does not have an option to reset the point.
In the same light, if Team A hits Team B’s cup, and Team B saves the shot, and in doing so hits the Doobie Rack on its return, Team A must return the ball back to Team B’s side; Team A does not have an option to reset the point. As the saying goes, a Save is a Save.
Section V: Rebuttals
When a team Sinks, that triggers a Rebuttal, shot by the player positioned on the sunk cup. If a Rebuttal is converted, no points are scored, but the defending team (i.e., the team that originally sunk) is required to drink the remainder of the beer in their cups. The defending team (more specifically, the player positioned on the sunk cup) then has the opportunity to shoot its own rebuttal. Teams continue to exchange Rebuttal shots until one is missed.
Section VI: Volley for Serve and Serving
1. The game begins with a volley to decide which player and team will serve first. This volley begins with the eldest player throwing the ball down the center of the table, bouncing the ball on his own side once before it arcs to the opposition’s side. The eldest player on the receiving team rallies the ball back down the middle of the table, a shot which is mimicked once by each of the remaining two players.
Once the ball has cycled back to the player who threw it originally, that player will indicate, by pointing, which side of the table he wishes to shoot at, and then will shoot at that cup. This begins a rally with normal game-play rules, except for the fact that a Volley for Serve only can end by virtue of a Hit or a Sink (i.e., Saves-Are-Saves and UFEs in effect cause the Volley to start over). The winner of the Volley for Serve gains possession of the first Service set.
a. A Volley for Serve does not result in a point being scored.
b. If games are being played in a “Winner Stays on the Table” format, the eldest player on the team that won the previous game will begin the Volley for Serve, even if a player on the challenger team is older.
2. Each player serves for 5 consecutive points, beginning with the player that wins the Volley for Serve.
3. Serving falls under Gentleman’s Rules. Hit it up. No “Alumni Serves” on my watch.
4. Doobies do not factor against your Serve count. For instance, Player X could serve for 8 straight rallies, but because only 4 points have been scored, he still has 1 Serve remaining.
5. The Server is responsible for announcing the game’s current score before each serve.
a. The serving team’s score is always announced before the returning team’s score.
6. Service sets alternate (1) diagonally, then (2) straight across the table, then (3) diagonally again, before returning straight across the table to the original service and beginning the cycle again.
Section VII: Drinking Rules
Pong is not a drinking game. It is a competitive sport that involves the ingestion of beer. Each player must start with a full beer in his cup, and then consume according to these guidelines:
a. Hit: One Sip
b. Sink: The remaining amount of beer in the defending team’s cup.
c. Save-is-a-Save: None.
d. Ceiling: One Sip
e. Mid-Volley Off-the-table: None
f. Service Off-the-table: One Sip
c. Rebuttal: The remaining amount of beer in the defending team’s cup. If a rebuttal shot is made on a cup with no beer “remaining” (e.g., team A Sinks, team B makes its rebuttal shot, and team A makes the subsequent rebuttal shot), an entire beer is consumed.
There is one other way to incur drinking, which involves knocking over cups of beer; this most often occurs when a throw-save careens into an opponent’s cup, though the way it occurs doesn’t matter. If a player knocks over one of his own team’s cups of beer, he is required to drink a full beer, and each teammate is required to drink whatever beer is left in each’s cup. If a player knocks over an opponent’s cup of beer, that player and his teammate are required to finish whatever beer is left in each’s cup, and the guilty individual is required to drink an additional full beer.
Section VIII: Winning
1. Teams must win by 2 or more points
2. Games can only end on a Sink or a Hit. If one team is at Game Point (i.e., is one point away from winning) other events that result in points during normal game-play (e.g., hitting the ceiling, hitting the ball off the table) instead simply reset the point.
a. Drinking rules still apply to these events. For instance, if Team A has 20 points and Team B serves off the table, Team A does not score a point, but Team B still must drink one sip.
3. All players shake hands as a sign of sportsmanship after each game.
Section IX: Overtime
1. Overtime occurs when the score is 20-20.
2. In overtime, each player only serves once in a row (rather than the normal five), but the same rotation applies as before.
3. Teams must still win by 2.