Pong Rules - How to Play

Above all, this is a gentleman’s and gentlewoman’s game. The goal is to have fun, consume some adult beverages, and exercise your hand/eye coordination. Etiquette is important, and if you aren’t shaking your opponents’ hands after the game, someone is taking things too seriously.

The below game video is a good starting point for understanding how the game is played, although it is not comprehensive and will need to be accompanied by reading the rules below.

The Set Up

Players: 4 players, split into 2 teams of 2 (1 vs. 1 is possible too)
Table: A 10x5 or 9x5 piece of wood placed upon two trash cans, saw horses, or other crutch to bring it to waist height. A standard ping-pong table is an acceptable alternative.

Recommended: 5 ply pine plywood 1/2" thick. Use a clear coat finish (not epoxy) to keep the integrity of the bounce

Median: this is a 2x4 wood plank, golf club, ski, or other object used to split the table into 2 sides. A ping-pong net is an acceptable alternative but not recommended
Cups: 12 oz. clear, plastic cups, 7-12 per side depending on formation used (see Cup Formations section for more detail)
Paddles: each player should have a ping-pong paddle with the handle and padding taken off and sanded
Ping-Pong Balls: you just need one to play, but we recommend having a few on hand. The more stars (higher quality), the better.
Beer of Choice (or other beverage if you’re feeling crazy): 4-6 beers per side, per game. This can vary depending on the cup formation used, but you need enough to be able to tell if a cup is full vs. half-full. Distribute beers evenly across the cups in your team’s formation.

How to Win

Remove all of the opposing team’s cups from the table by sinking or hitting them

Game Play

Serving: A rally begins by a player serving to the opponent diagonally positioned from them. Similar to ping-pong, the ball must hit the server’s side of the table before crossing the median and landing on the opponent’s side of the table. However, unlike ping-pong, the serve must be lobbed (above shoulder height) to the opponent.

Who serves? Depending on the version being played, either the player that drank most recently, or the player serving to the opponent that just hit/sunk a cup. More details on when each player drinks below.
How many serve attempts? Three - if a player misses the opponents’ side of the table 3 times, their team must drink a half cup.
Service Errors: You do not want to hit/sink a cup on your serve. If you hit a cup, you must remove a half cup from your formation. If you sink a cup, you must remove a full cup from your formation.

You cannot lose on a serve, meaning that if there is only a half cup left on your side of the table, you have unlimited opportunities to serve without having to finish that half cup for a service error.

Rallying:

Following the serve, the goal of the rally is to hit or sink your opponents’ cups with the ball. Players alternate shots.
Sinks: If a cup is sunk, it must be consumed and removed from the table. If the sunk cup is full, each player typically drinks half of it (mmm). If the sunk cup is already a half, that team is lucky, and only one player drinks to finish the cup.
Hits: If a cup is hit, then the defending team has an opportunity to save it and keep the rally alive by returning the ball to the opposing team’s side of the table before the ball hits the ground or bounces twice on the table. If the ball is not saved, then the team whose cup got hit must drink half of it (removing it from the table if only a half remains to begin with).
Walls/Ceilings: balls that hit the wall or ceiling are live, meaning you can sink/hit a cup off of the wall/ceiling. Sometimes serves are decided to be exceptions to this.

Low Shots / Calling Low: Throughout a rally, all shots must be lobbed and generally have an upward trajectory that allows the ball to reach shoulder height at a minimum. A player may call “low” at any time, if a shot does not meet this standard. If “low” is called (usually by the team that hit it per pong etiquette), the player that hit the low shot must serve to start a new rally.

Exceptions: Saves can be low - see next section. Another common rule is that you cannot call low on a sink, meaning that if the ball goes in the cup, it doesn’t matter how much it was lobbed.

Saves: Most variations of the game allow either player to make a save when their cup is hit (“team saves”). In other words, it does not have to be your turn to hit the ball for you to make a save. If the save is successful, then the previous hitting order resumes as the rally continues.

Throw Saves: a more advanced move, a player can make a save by throwing his or her paddle (“throw saves”) into the ball when the ball is out of reach. This player must quickly retrieve their paddle if the rally continues.
Slam Saves: as noted above, “low” cannot be called on a save. For that reason, saves are often hit as line drives right at the cups (“slammed”), making it difficult for the opposing team to subsequently save or continue the rally.
Body/Kick Saves: some variations of the game allow a player to use their chest (“chestie”), stomach, or legs/feet (“fifa”) to keep a ball in air before ultimately saving it.

Drinking - recapping from above:

Your team drinks when your opponents sink your cup or hit it without you saving it
Players alternate drinking half cups. If a full cup is sunk, each player drinks half of it. If a half cup is sunk, whoever is next up to drink finishes the cup.
If you have a service error, you drink, despite the correct drinking order. If you sink a full cup on the serve, you drink a full cup from your formation.
If you drink half of a cup that is full, you should consume enough to make it clear that cup is a half, but not so much that the beer does not weigh down the cup.