Drinking game

Drinking games are games which involve the drinking of beer or other alcoholic beverages. These games commonly take place at house parties, public bars or pubs. The games often follow a version of the International Drinking Rules, and the objectives are to either simply drink competitively for speed or to win via others becoming too drunk. Participants are primarily college students, young adults and high school students. The games are often designed in a way that being inebriated significantly increases their fun factor.

History

Ancient Greece

Symposium, with scene of Kottabos - fresco from the Tomb of the Diver in Paestum, 475 BC

According to Dr. Rupert Thompson of the University of Cambridge, the earliest reference to drinking games in Western literature is from Plato's Symposium The Drinking Party. The game was simple: fill a bowl with wine, drink it, and pass it on to the next person. Kottabos is one of the earliest known drinking games from ancient Greece, dated to the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Players would use dregs to hit targets across the room with their wine. Often, there were special prizes and penalties for one's performance in the game.

Ancient China

Drinking games were also enjoyed in ancient China, usually incorporating the use of dice or verbal exchange of riddles. During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the Chinese also used a silver canister where written lots could be drawn that designated which player had to drink and specifically how much; for example, from 1, 5, 7, or 10 measures of drink that the youngest player, or the last player to join the game, or the most talkative player, or the host, or the player with the greatest alcohol tolerance, etc. had to drink There were even drinking game referee officials, including a 'registrar of the rules' who knew all the rules to the game, a 'registrar of the horn' who tossed a silver flag down on calling out second offenses, and a 'governor' who decided one's third call of offense. These referees were used mainly for maintaining order (as drinking games back then often became rowdy) and for reviewing faults that could be punished with a player drinking a penalty cup. If a guest was considered a 'coward' for dropping out of the game, he could be branded as a 'deserter' and not invited back to further drinking bouts.

Wager cup, Maker's mark of Joseph Walker, Dublin, Ireland, 1706-7, Silver V&A Museum no. M.1643-1944 Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Types of games

Endurance games

The simplest drinking games are endurance games in which players compete to out-drink each other. Players take turns taking shots, and the last person standing is the winner. Some games have rules involving the "cascade", "fountain" or "waterfall", which encourages each player to drink constantly from their cup so long as the player before him does not stop drinking. Such games can also favor speed over quantity, in which case players race to drink a beer the fastest.

"Loser buys" games

These are games played where whoever loses must buy the next round of drinks for all other players, such as spoof.

Speed games

Steven Petrosino, during a promotional shot after his successful Guinness World Record beer drinking attempt at the Gingerbreadman Pub in Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Many pub or bar games involve competitive drinking for speed and not necessarily quantity consumed. The object of these games may not be inebriation, but may involve simply "bragging rights" or wagers of cash which benefit the fastest drinker. Examples of drinking games involving speed are boat and case races, Edward Fortyhands, beer bonging, shotgunning and yard.

World record

The Guinness Book of Records began to list world records for speed drinking in this category in the early 1960s. These early drinking records involved drinking beer from challenging vessels such as the yard of ale glass, which, if not correctly mastered, resulted in the user receiving a blast of beer in his or her face. The current record is held by Jimmy Weiss, who drank 1 liter of beer in 1.30 seconds in June 1977. The record was later dropped from the Guinness book in 1991 due to concerns about litigation.

Thinking games

Thinking games rely on the players' powers of observation, recollection, logic and articulation. Such games are not difficult at the onset, but become much more challenging as the game continues as players become inebriated and their coordination and memory deteriorate.

Numerous types of thinking games exist. In memory games, each player must repeat a series of events, add to it, and when a player forgets, he or she must take a drink. Thinking games include 21, beer checkers, bizz buzz, buffalo, bullshit, caps, Captain Paf, matchboxes, one fat hen, roman numerals and zoom schwartz profigliano.

Observation games require drinking when some trigger occurs, often based on the group of drinkers, a major sporting or news event, or popular movies, television shows, books. For instance, participants caught uttering a habitual figure of speech must drink; or all players watching a show must drink when a character speaks a catch phrase or a commonly repeated action or plot twist occurs.

Coordination games

Drinking games involving players performing certain skills become more difficult as the level of intoxication increases, such as beer pong, flip cup (tippy cup), and jackball, but also include those that use quarters or other coins, such as bouncing coins, chandeliers, land mine, moose, caps, pennying and quarters.

Card games

Several popular drinking games involving cards are asshole, connections, fuck the dealer, horserace, kings, liar's poker, pyramid, seconds, and ride the bus.

Dice games

Dice games include 7-11-doubles, beer die, dudo, kinito, kranen, liar's dice, mexico, mia, pounce!, ship, captain, and crew, tablero da Gucci, three man and 57Fuct.

Tolerance games

Tolerance games are about seeing which player can last the longest. It can be as simple as going shot for shot until one person passes out. Power Hour and its variant, Century Club, fall under this category.

Movie games

Movie drinking games are played while watching a movie (or a TV show, or sometimes a sporting event) and have a set of rules for who drinks when and how much based on on-screen events and dialogue. The rules may be the same for all players, or alternatively players may each be assigned rules related to particular characters. The rules are designed so that rarer events require larger drinks. Rule sets for such games are usually arbitrary and local, although they are sometimes published by fan clubs.

Miscellaneous games

There are many other drinking games that cannot be categorized any certain way, such as never have I ever and the Vegetable Game.

Criticisms

Researchers have noted that the prevalence of heavy drinking has increased among adolescents and young adults, particularly at colleges. For many college students, heavy alcohol use occurs during drinking games. A review of the drinking games literature indicated that between 47% and 62% of college students participate in these games. Also important is the relevance of alcohol consumption while playing drinking games and its link to alcohol-related problems. It is often assumed that all drinking games pose similar health risks such as heavy alcohol use. Results of current research indicate that variations emerged regarding popularity, type of alcoholic beverage consumed, and participants’ intoxication level among different drinking games. Beer pong, kings, never have I ever and flip cup were popular drinking games. Most participants who played beer pong and flip cup consumed soft liquor and many respondents who played kings/queens and never have I ever used both soft/hard liquor. Participants who played funneling, chugging and power hour reported higher perceived intoxication levels compared to those who played jenga. Hazardous alcohol use was associated with the use of both soft/hard liquor during drinking games, increased drinking games participation, greater alcohol consumption while playing, and higher intoxication levels. Consumption of soft/hard liquor was related to higher alcohol consumption and intoxication levels; increased drinking games participation and elevated alcohol consumption during drinking games were associated with higher intoxication levels.

References

Resources

• Benn, Charles (2002). China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517665-0.

External links

• Large Collection of Drinking Games
• Movie Drinking Games at MovieCynics.com
• Drinking Games at Curlie
• Movie Drinking Games