Top 10 College Drinking Games

by Eric Durkin
Love of Sports Correspondent

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When I was in college I did my best to hide how much drinking and partying I did from my parents.

It wasn’t really necessary, because my mom and dad are pretty cool and didn’t much worry what I did.  So long as I didn’t hurt others - or myself - they let me do what I wanted.

The best part of college for me was the nights spent with my friends playing drinking games. Sure, the bars were fun, but it was pretty much always the same: start at Blue Bricks, go to the Underground, stop by Mum’s, then finish the night at the Haze. But when it came to the seemingly endless string of drinking games to play, the nights were always different. Here are my all-time Top 10 favorite College Drinking Games.

10. Categories

This game is beautiful in its simplicity, because all it takes to play is other people. The first person picks a category from something as simple as cars or baseball teams, to more difficult topics like brands of makeup (a favorite of the ladies at my school) and then it goes around the circle with people rattling off things within the category until something is repeated, they say something that isn’t within the category, or someone draws a blank. DRINK!

9. Connections

The entire deck is dealt face-down and players don’t look at their cards. The first player flips a card and the player next to them does the same. If they connect in either number or suit, they drink. The Player to the right of the second player counts up to the highest number in the connection and players drink until their corresponding number is counted off. If the entire table connects, it’s a waterfall beginning with the person who started the connection. This is a good game to start a night, but it can be a little more difficult when people have some drinks in them. It an be pretty fun and if the cards fall right (or wrong, your call) it can get you lit up pretty quickly.

8. Moose

This one requires a quarter, an empty ice tray and a plastic bowl. The bowl is set up at the end of the empty ice tray and each person pours some of his or her respective drink into it. The first person takes the quarter and bounces it at the ice tray. If it lands on the left side they give drinks to other players based on which hole the quarter falls in: first (closest) hole, give one drink; second, 2 drinks, etc. If it lands on the right side the thrower takes that number of drinks. If they miss the tray they take 5 drinks. If they manage to bounce it into the bowl, the last person at the table to put their hands up like moose antlers and shout “MOOSE!” must drink the contents of the bowl. I LOVE this game. Be prepared for arguments about who was the last to say moose, it’s one of the games many endearing qualities.

7. Ride the Bus

I’d like to state for the record I know there are many many, many, variations of this game. This is how we played it when I was in school. We used Ride the Bus as a means of punishment for losing most of our other games, usually pyramid which we’ll get into later. Eight cards were placed facedown on the table. The object was to flip them all over without flipping a face card. For every ace, 4 cards were added, kings 3 cards, queens 2, and jacks 1. Cards were added until you went through without flipping a face. This was never a pleasant game for the person flipping the cards. I can remember (or at least remember being told) about a lot of bad nights that started with a trip on the bus.

6. Never Have I Ever:

People go around in a circle saying things they’ve never done. Anyone at the table who has done that must drink. This was a good way to embarrass friends by bringing up their previous exploits. This game generally led to a lot of great stories and new information about your friends.

5. Quarters

Everyone knows this game. A cup of some sort of alcohol is placed in the middle of a table and players take turns trying to bounce a quarter into it. Miss, and take a drink of your beverage. Make it, and make someone drink the cup. Great game (minus the part about drinking a cup of booze with a dirty quarter in it).

4. Presidents and Assholes (AKA: P&A, Asshole, Presidents)

This is another game a lot of people know. The first player throws a card; the player next to them must beat it. If they cannot, they can throw down a two and clear the pile or play the same card which skips the player next to them. If all four cards of the same number are played, the pile is cleared and it’s a social for the table. The first person to get rid of all their cards wins, and is president for the next game. The next person is vice president, second to last person out is vice asshole and the last person out becomes the asshole. The asshole must deal and while dealing can dole out drinks. Once done, anyone can make the asshole drink. The president can make anyone at the table drink and can make up rules, should they become president three times. This is a great game and the rules can make it pretty interesting. Our favorite was no swearing. It was almost impossible for my friends to abide by this rule.

3. Pyramid

A pyramid of cards is dealt out starting with 5 cards on the bottom. Once the pyramid is made the remaining cards are dealt out to the players.  Someone starts flipping the cards in the pyramid from the bottom up. When a card is flipped that you have in your hand, you give that card to someone and they have to drink: a card in the bottom row of the pyramid is worth two drinks, the row of four cards is worth four drinks, and so on.  It goes up by two drinks per row to ten drinks for the top of the pyramid. If you were looking to really get drunk quickly you could play this game in reverse order. The extra wrinkle we added was that whoever had the most cards leftover once all the cards of the pyramid were flipped over had to ride the bus, which I explained a little earlier. This was a good game because it was easy for everyone to comprehend, which is key in drinking games. Show me a difficult game and a bunch of beers and I’ll show you a deck of cards thrown all over the floor. My favorite part of the game was waiting a few seconds after a card you had in your hand was flipped, to see if other people with the same card assigned you the drink. It’s a good feeling to have your friend smile and smugly say, “drink,” then toss them the card from your hand and make them join you. It’s even better when you have two of the cards flipped, they give you drinks and you respond with “drink double.”

2. Flip Cup

Lets set the record straight, it’s Flip Cup, NOT Tip Cup. Teams line up on opposite sides of a table, and each team member has their own cup. Some people only fill the cup half way, but my friends and I would generally go for the full cup. The game starts with a cheers by the first player on each team. The first player pounds their beer, sets the cup upside down and hanging just off the edge of the table. They hit the cup from the bottom and try to flip it to make it land right side up. As soon as they get their cup to land upright, the next player on their team goes. The first team to go all the way through with all the cups flipped upright wins. Cheering ensues. 

This is a really fun party game. It’s an easy game for people to get into regardless of whether or not they’re actually playing. The only real problem is it almost always makes a huge mess. But in 99% of the college houses I’ve been in, that’s not really a problem. Prepare to clean up afterwords - it is definitely worth it.

1. Beer Pong (AKA: Beirut)

Flip Cup is always a great time but there can only be one game at the top of this list.

Just thinking about beer pong puts a smile on my face. The name alone can cause a full-on riot. At my school it was beer pong, for many others it is Beirut. I don’t think anyone on either side is willing to change what they call it. If you don’t know how to play this, well then, I don’t know what to say. Here’s the quick run down: make a triangle of cups filled with beer across a table from another team. Throw ping-pong balls into said cups. Wherever you go, the rules change a little. Some people allow bouncing the balls; some people allow blowing a ball out of a cup if it’s floating around the rim. Some people say only girls can blow. Generally people play that the ball must be thrown and it’s fair game for grabbing after one bounce. This rule caused one of my favorite beer pong stories ever.

[Cue Wind Chimes, Fade to Hazy Black-and-White]

My friends and I were playing at our friend Courtney’s house. My good buddy Charlie was teamed up with another friend of ours, Kelly. Charlie was standing to Kelly’s left when someone tried to sneak a bounce shot in. Charlie was a little over zealous in his rejection of the ball and swatted it directly into Kelly’s eye. We all had a good laugh after finding out Kelly was okay. We laughed even harder when he did the exact same thing about 10 throws later. I’m fairly certain Kelly vowed then that she would never be teammates with Charlie again. Few could blame her. 

I did a lot of stupid things in college, some that I regret and some that probably made me a better person today. But I know I would never, under any circumstance, give back the nights I had playing drinking games with my friends. Lifelong friendships were created over a deck of soggy cards that was more than likely short. No matter what game we played, the end result was always the same: a giant mess, a game that was quit before it was actually over and someone with beer spilled on their shirt.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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