Beer Pong Forums: A few good questions for good Pong players.

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The WSOBP III™
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A few good questions for good Pong players.

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ksmith1080 Joined: 11.21.2007 Age: 26 Total Games: 0 W/L %: 0 Avg CD: 0 Full Stats	Posted: Nov 21st 2007, 12:35 am Post subject: A few good questions for good Pong players. I have just a few questions, or ideas for new rules. No complaints with the current ones, but some ways we play to garauntee the best team wins. 1. We play no "slop". If the ball hits one cup then goes in another, it doesn't count. This ensures that a team must make all the cups. More skill = a better game. 2. Some people play "defense", where a team can blow or pull out the ball if it has not hit beer. I didn't see any specifications about this in the rules, so I am guessing it is not allowed. Any answers? 3. Are there re-racks, or "consolidations" as we call them, mid-turn. So if I hit the 7th cup, can we ask for a re-rack before my teammate shoots? 4. If both players on a team were to hit the last cup, are there redemption shots for the opposing team? Or is the game over? I believe Beer Pong is a gentlemans game, so for those of you we see at the WSOBP III, good luck. One last thing, for any of you players out there who think making two balls in the same cup is awesome and the game should be over, the SKILL in the game is making every cup, and if you can do that, you could end any game in the first two shots. Terrible rule. Thanks in advance for any feedback on the above questions/comments.
billy Joined: 01.01.1991 Age: 31 Total Games: 1 W/L %: 100 Avg CD: 1.00 Full Stats	Posted: Nov 21st 2007, 12:49 am Post subject: A few good questions for good Pong players. As a general review, read the full rules - we list the objectives/general thoughts of what we were trying to accomplish. (2) That rule doesn't apply. It's too hard to enforce because it's too hard to tell if the ball really hit beer or not. We wanted to minimize disputes, and when you play with such rules, there are often disputes as to whether the ball actually hit beer. (4) Yes, there are re-racks mid-turn. (5) Under the current rules, the second player would never get that second shot - the other team would automatically get an "endless ball," i.e., shoot with it (alternating players) until one misses or puts it into OT. This is one rule I'm still wanting to review. In the past two years, I was actually very surprised and very appreciative of how well behaved everybody is. People come out to play pong, have fun, and meet people - that's exactly what they do.
bigcoxjsa Joined: 11.21.2007 Total Games: 0 W/L %: 0 Avg CD: 0 Full Stats	Posted: Nov 21st 2007, 05:03 am Post subject: A few good questions for good Pong players. those were pretty much all the exact questions I wanted to ask about the rules save 1: If bounces are allowed, and you are not allowed to grab before the ball hits a cup, would the rules then require that you can not automatically block a bounce? (this would seem to make sense as no bonus is given for a bounced shot)
duncan Joined: 01.01.1991 Age: 30 Total Games: 8 W/L %: 62.5 Avg CD: -0.38 Full Stats	Posted: Nov 21st 2007, 05:56 am Post subject: A few good questions for good Pong players. Correct. You can't block a bounce. The "sneak attack" (2 shots on a bounce + swatting on a bounce) rule is a popular rule but there are two main reasons why we have excluded it (feel free to argue): 1. Hitting a bounce shot doesn't display any more skill than hitting a regular shot, so to award 2 cups takes away from one of our main goals which is to reward skill at shooting. 2. In the WSOBP many tables are aligned in a row, and swatting a ball away could easily interfere with an adjacent game. In addition, the way I always saw it, the sneak attack rule was mainly so that you could penalize people who are not paying attention to the game. For example, at a house party it happens a lot that players are watching TV instead of playing the game, but at The WSOBP it's less of a problem since people are more focused on the game at hand.
juzam139 Joined: 01.01.1991 Age: 30 Total Games: 92 W/L %: 67.39 Avg CD: 1.25 Full Stats	Posted: Nov 21st 2007, 08:31 am Post subject: A few good questions for good Pong players. Yeah last year's tables weren't conducive to bouncing anyhow. The ball seemed to die unless you hit the right spot on the table. You're better off throwing the ball and leaving the bouncing to girls boobs.
solidgold Joined: 08.16.2007 Age: 27 Total Games: 38 W/L %: 65.79 Avg CD: 1.16 Full Stats	Posted: Nov 21st 2007, 08:39 am Post subject: A few good questions for good Pong players. I know this rule has been talked about a ton on this site but here are my two cents. I still don't understand why a team gets to shoot until they miss to go into overtime. I get that it makes the game more exciting but I think it gives a team that should have lost a chance to come back and force overtime.
bigcoxjsa Joined: 11.21.2007 Total Games: 0 W/L %: 0 Avg CD: 0 Full Stats	Posted: Nov 29th 2007, 05:13 am Post subject: A few good questions for good Pong players. duncan Correct. You can't block a bounce. The "sneak attack" (2 shots on a bounce + swatting on a bounce) rule is a popular rule but there are two main reasons why we have excluded it (feel free to argue): 1. Hitting a bounce shot doesn't display any more skill than hitting a regular shot, so to award 2 cups takes away from one of our main goals which is to reward skill at shooting. 2. In the WSOBP many tables are aligned in a row, and swatting a ball away could easily interfere with an adjacent game. In addition, the way I always saw it, the sneak attack rule was mainly so that you could penalize people who are not paying attention to the game. For example, at a house party it happens a lot that players are watching TV instead of playing the game, but at The WSOBP it's less of a problem since people are more focused on the game at hand. I understand the reasoning, especially for such a large tournament. I would have a couple of things to say about it. 1. Though bouncing may not take more skill, it def. requires a different kind. Mainly reading your opponents. Some people may be very intent on the game, but that doesn't mean they can effectively block the bounce. I feel like it somewhat checks back crazy distracting as someone has to play defense. 2. It also checks back drunk people. As coordination decreases, not only does blocking ability decrease, but likelihood of knocking cups over increases. 3. If in fact bouncing is ineffective at the WSOBP because of attention paid to every game or because of the tables used, then it will quickly root itself out, absent of any rule. I'm sure I have more to say on the subject, if prompted.
bigcoxjsa Joined: 11.21.2007 Total Games: 0 W/L %: 0 Avg CD: 0 Full Stats	Posted: Nov 29th 2007, 05:21 am Post subject: A few good questions for good Pong players. solidgold I know this rule has been talked about a ton on this site but here are my two cents. I still don't understand why a team gets to shoot until they miss to go into overtime. I get that it makes the game more exciting but I think it gives a team that should have lost a chance to come back and force overtime. Just one comment on this rule (and this is how we play, but don't use overtime): by this logic, ALL redemption opportunities allow the same thing - someone who "should have lost" to come back. Consider the perfect game on both sides. Without redemption, whoever went first could win only because they went first. Also if you are destroying a team (where the team REALLY doesn't deserve to win) the chances are that they won't. Allowing a somewhat equal team to force the game to continue seems just.
prusch Joined: 08.22.2006 Age: 31 Total Games: 161 W/L %: 77.02 Avg CD: 1.76 Full Stats	Posted: Nov 29th 2007, 06:50 pm Post subject: A few good questions for good Pong players. bigcoxjsa solidgold I know this rule has been talked about a ton on this site but here are my two cents. I still don't understand why a team gets to shoot until they miss to go into overtime. I get that it makes the game more exciting but I think it gives a team that should have lost a chance to come back and force overtime. Just one comment on this rule (and this is how we play, but don't use overtime): by this logic, ALL redemption opportunities allow the same thing - someone who "should have lost" to come back. Consider the perfect game on both sides. Without redemption, whoever went first could win only because they went first. Also if you are destroying a team (where the team REALLY doesn't deserve to win) the chances are that they won't. Allowing a somewhat equal team to force the game to continue seems just. The point of the post you responded to was not to question redemption - but more to question the way the rules change for a redemption situation. In normal World Series game play, one teammate shoots, then the other. If they both make, then one of the teammates gets to shoot a third. With this in place, a team can only make three cups in a given turn. I'm assuming that solidgold would like to see a rule that would make redemption just like any other turn. If there are three or less cups left, then a team can force OT. If there are 4 or more left, then the game is over.
viejid Joined: 07.30.2007 Total Games: 0 W/L %: 0 Avg CD: 0 Full Stats	Posted: Mar 14th 2008, 02:25 am Post subject: A few good questions for good Pong players. I am partial to bouncing because I'm rather good at it. By being "rather good" I mean that if im playing against someone who has more than 3 games in them, I can shoot a bounce while they're looking at me and make it shallow enough to make it in if they're not close enough to the table. Having said that, I understand why bouncing would be taken out of a massive tournament, it would just get too chaotic. Usually when we play we have certain tacit rules for bouncing (you can't bounce if the other team is getting one of your balls, you can't bounce if someone is cleaning something up, you can't bounce immediately after a rerack, etc.), and that would be very hard to enforce, plus, it would just add to the mess of having to clean up knocked over beers.