Three player beer pong? That’s crazy talk. But no, I managed to find a way. It comes out of those sad nights where you really want to play but its a week night and you can only find two willing souls to drink with work looming on the horizon. I know it’s pathetic but it happens sometimes. Some people just don’t put beer pong first. Now normally you play regular 1 v 1 beer pong rotating with winner staying on the table. This is well and good but the non participant is left with little else to do but watch the game. This is where Odd Man Out beer pong comes in.
It is played similar to standard beer pong with the exception of the odd number of players. Cups hit are cups removed. Bounces count as two. Winner sinks the last cup on the opposing side and so on. So where does the third person come in? There are three separate teams. Lets call them Player A, Player B, and Player C. So it starts with Player A and Player B on sides of the table with Player C on the sideline like a normal 1 v 1 game. Lets say Player A wins the shot. After they take the first shot they move off the table to the sideline and Player C takes the place to receive the shot from Player B. After Player B shoots they move to the sideline and A takes their spot to receive player C’s shot. And so on and so forth till the game resolves.
Everyone plays and on top of that everyone plays on both sides. Player A always shoots at player B’s cups, Player B always shoots at Player C’s cups, and Player C always shoots at player A’s cups. And likewise Player B drinks the cups sank by A, Player C drinks the cups sank by player B, and Player A drinks the cups hit by Player C. The cups on each side maintain the standard amount of racks and any active player may call for the rack. This sometimes results in some players getting no racks but its all a matter of who’s hitting the cups.
What really helps to keep this version of the game fast paced is that the active player may shoot their shot when they want so long as they are behind their side. This means that if the player on the sideline isn’t moving fast enough a well made bounce can be hard to block. In addition to being faced paced there is also the interesting feature of playing both sides. So if you hit a cup, you then find yourself next on the defence of that side. This can make the last cup shooting very interesting. The person who hits the second to last cup on a side has to be staring down the first shot to end the game. Nothing is as it seems with Odd Man Out beer pong.
There are two ways of playing the end of the game. The style you choose is generally down to preference. First way is that when the last cup is hit, only the active player on the other side gets to shoot rebuttals. If they make it the game continues in overtime in the same style as before, but if they miss then they get the loss and the Odd Man Out gets a pass. They are out in the ether at that moment and can say that they did not lose. The other is where both the active player and the Odd Man Out gets rebuttals. It plays out the same as before except that the Odd Man Out also gets a loss and the winner can claim they beat both players at the same time.
One of the things I find intriguing about this form of beer pong is that the game truly is not over till it is over. The person who hits the majority of the cups is not necessarily the winner. Also a player could suck the whole game and get only one cup in but they can still win it all. Likewise it can happen that if the player shooting at you sucks you might not drink much while another player gets totally screwed but that can make the game more fun as you watch that player’s face as they get yet another cup handed to them. Ultimately I think that Odd Man Out is an interesting new addition to beer pong and a great way to spice the game up on those nights when the numbers just aren’t there to support you beer pong fix. I hope you all try it out and let me know what you think.
5 Comments
Although an interesting variation, the setup is to prone to unfair wins for anyone to agree to play it: if you know you are the better player out of 3, why would you agree to play this game? Ok, I understand, it is still fun, and there’s an NCAA tourney vibe to it in that you can suck forever and as long as you make it when it counts, you’ll win. But why not just play everyone against everyone? Or 2 against 1, rotating who is paired up?
I always assume that if you started the game with just 3 people, you should have enough beer to play at least 3 games (seriously, who buy anything less than a case of beer when playing beer pong?)
A variation I think could be interesting (and would benefit he/she who is making the most cups) is the following:
Normal rules apply to shooting
You start with two players on one side, and one player on the other. At any point in time, the player that has made the least number of cups has to play by himself. This implies that the player that is alone has 2 shots while the other 2 players have only one shot a piece. If all the cups on one side of the table are taken out, the player who was alone loses, and the game is transformed into a 1 on 1, where the cups are divided:
- evenly if the total number is even, or
- the player which made the least cups out of the remaining 2 gets 1 more cup on his side than the leading player
With that set of rules, it always pays to make shots, but you still allow whoever is losing to come back faster than those who are winning.
I agree! Although I am partial to “odd man out” 3 games minimum is mandatory for 3 people.
We played a triangle elimination game last night… 1 on 1 on 1 everyone active at once on a triangle table.
Played y/day afternoon.
Winner of each round get to choose the rotation for next round.
Winner choose by least amount of cups drank.
Tie breaker one on one cup off. Loser drinks both cups.
hay un jeugo donde hobmres estan desnudos ..tomando cerveza..a la misma vez..o uno solo..o algo asi..peor no es este..ni otro de cartas ni nada parecido cual es??