Beer pong rules: cups, teams and house variants

Beer pong is a throwing game for two teams at opposite ends of a table. Each side has a rack of cups. Players toss a ping-pong ball. If the ball stays in a cup, that cup comes off the rack. The team that clears the other rack wins, unless you adopted a rebuttal rule, which is covered later and is optional. Two players a side is the usual match. Warm-up tosses do not remove cups.

This page is for adults 21 or older in the United States. If anyone at the table is under 21, do not use alcohol. Water in the rack is a complete game, and a personal cup can stay separate from the ball. Filling the rack with beer is a choice those adults may make. No statute sets the rack, the elbow, or the bounce. Houses and tournaments publish their own sheets, and the sheets disagree. Say the fill, the elbow, and the bounce before the first real throw.

The throw is the game. Penalty stunts, extra drinks for a shutout, and forfeits that force someone to drink more than they planned are a bad addition. Leave them out. If the table wants more party games that do not depend on alcohol, the games of chance topic collects them, and the about page says what this site is.

The common rack is ten cups in a triangle: a row of four at the back, then three, then two, then one cup closest to the throwers on the other side. Both teams build the same shape. The point of the triangle faces the opponents. Cups touch, so the rack is a solid target rather than ten islands.

Six-cup games exist. Wikipedia lists six and ten as typical counts. This page stays on ten. If you drop to six, say so before you pour, and do not argue later that a ten-cup custom still applies.

Setup

• Two teams, usually two players each. One against one also works if both sides have the same number of throwers.
• Ten matching cups per side. A common party cup has ridge lines. Use a line as a fill mark so every cup matches.
• Fill with water, or, for adults 21 or older who all agree, a small equal pour of beer. A light fill is enough. The ball does not need a full cup.
• Two ping-pong balls. Cracked or dirty balls go in the bin.
• A flat table. Banquet tables and table-tennis tables are common because they are long. Any level surface the teams accept is legal for a house game.

Put a cup of clean water beside each rack if you want to rinse the ball. A rinse cup is not a sterilizer. Many tables keep the rack as water for that reason and never share a drink from a cup the ball landed in. That is the cleaner version, and it is the version to use whenever alcohol is off the table.

A turn is one team's throws. In the common kitchen version, each player on the team throws once, then the other team throws. Some houses alternate one player at a time across the table. Both work. They change how fast a hot team can pull ahead, so pick one.

A shot counts when the ball goes into the cup and stays there. Rimming the lip and popping out does not count. A ball that bounces off a cup and then into another cup counts as the cup it stays in, unless your house has banned deflections. Call that before the game if anyone cares.

When a cup is made, remove it. If the rack holds beer and every player is an adult who agreed to drink, the defending side drinks that cup. If the rack holds water, remove the cup and do not invent a drink. Nobody has to finish a cup they did not agree to. A player who wants to stop drinking stops. The throwing game can continue with water, or it can end. Ending is always allowed.

Both balls on the same turn can hit. Two hits remove two cups. A house rule called a rollback gives the team another pair of throws when both shots hit. Wikipedia notes that some tournament sheets allow only a single extra ball in that spot. Rollback is optional. If you did not adopt it, two hits are just two cups, and the other team shoots.

The elbow rule says the elbow of the throwing arm stays behind the back edge of the table. You may lean. You may not plant that elbow past the edge to shrink the distance. A throw that breaks the rule does not count. The ball comes back, and the cup stays.

This is a house rule. It is not a statute, and it is not printed on the ball. Some tables want it because a long table is the whole test of the throw. Some tables ignore it and let people shoot from wherever both teams can live with. Tournament sheets often keep a version of it so every match is the same length. Your kitchen match is the same length only if you say so.

How to apply it if you adopt it

The elbow, not the wrist, is the line. A long arm can still reach forward. Show the edge once before the first real throw.

Agree whether one warning comes first. A clean version gives zero warnings: the cup is the warning. Also agree whether a teammate may call your own elbow. Opponents should be the ones who call it, so a team is not talking itself out of a cup.

A re-rack, also called a reform or a rearrange, pulls the remaining cups into a tighter shape. After four cups leave a ten-cup triangle, the survivors can be a messy scatter. Grouping them brings back a target. It also spends a limited resource, so teams save it.

A common kitchen sheet allows two re-racks per team. You ask on your own turn, before anyone throws. The other team slides your remaining cups. Typical shapes are a triangle of six, a diamond or square of four, a triangle of three, and a line of two. None of those shapes is mandatory. The point is that the cups touch again and the formation is obvious.

You cannot re-rack while a ball is in the air. You cannot re-rack the opponents' cups to make them harder, unless a house is playing a hostile variant it announced. The ordinary rule is that the team that still owns the cups decides when to spend a re-rack, and the other team does the sliding so the cups are not nudged closer to the thrower.

On the last cup there is nothing to rearrange. Do not spend a re-rack on one cup. If a team has one re-rack left at three cups, a triangle is the usual ask.

Count the re-racks out loud. A third request, on a two-re-rack sheet, is a no. The cups stay where they are. Writing hash marks on the score side of a cup is enough memory for a loud room.

A bounce is a throw that hits the tabletop once and then goes toward the cups. It is optional. If the house did not allow it, a bounce that falls in does not count. Take the ball out and leave the cup.

If the house allows bounces, set three details:

• Whether the shooter must call "bounce" before the ball leaves the hand. A common version requires the call. An uncalled bounce does not count.
• Whether the defending team may swat the ball after the bounce and before it reaches a cup. A common version allows the swat. Swatting a ball that has not bounced is a foul, and the shooter retakes the shot.
• What a bounce that stays in a cup is worth. A common version removes two cups: the one it landed in, and one more that the defending team chooses. Another version removes only the cup it landed in, and the swat is the entire tradeoff. Pick one.

Two cups for a bounce is a strong reward. It is why defenders hover a hand. If you allow the swat, defenders should keep hands off the cups until the ball has bounced, so they are not blocking ordinary arcs.

A bounce that hits the floor first is not a bounce. It is a miss. A bounce that hits a cup, pops out, and never stays in is a miss. A bounce into your own half does nothing.

Say this list once. Then play.

• Ten cups or another count you named.
• Water, or beer for adults 21 or older, and which ridge line is the fill.
• Elbows behind the edge, or no elbow rule.
• Two throws per team, then switch, or some other order.
• Rollback on two hits, or no rollback.
• Two re-racks, or re-racks only at six and three.
• Bounce off, or bounce on, with call, swat, and one cup or two.
• Fingers or blowing a spinning ball out of the cup. A common house allows a finger if the ball is still on the rim and has not broken the plane of the drink. Another house bans it. Banning it is simpler.
• Last cup. A common custom called rebuttal or redemption lets the team that is about to lose throw at the cups they have left. If they clear them, some houses play a short overtime, often three cups. If you skip rebuttal, the team that clears the rack wins immediately.

Skip death cups, shutout punishments, and any rule whose effect is "drink more." They are how a throwing game turns into a dare. Adults who are drinking should eat, pace themselves, and stop. A player who is impaired does not get another match "to finish the rules."

The closest cousin at the same party is flip cup: a relay down the table, not a rack of ten cups. If the cups are done, casino party ideas reset the room around cards and chips, and left right center passes chips with three dice.