BeerPongaPalooza

Saturday night brings me to a Beirut tournament in the city. It's a closed double elimination bracket with matching uniforms and plenty of fanfare. Because every group plays Beirut differently, it's important to know the rules. The house rules for this game are as follows:
1) 10 cups, 1 rerack, your choice of when
2) A bounce can be swatted, but if it goes in, it counts for 2 cups
3) Finish your drink before you shoot
4) Both balls make, balls back
5) Rebounds are live and can be reshot if recovered
6) Elbow must behind the table mark
7) Both balls going in the same cup gets 3 cups.

Chaz comes as my partner and at 8:15 we're into the first round game. We get a nice easy draw on the first round, a twosome that have just met for the first time and don't have too much experience between them. It's a good game to get a rhythm. That's when we find there's been some shenanigans...apparently, the host team has not only given themselves the highest seed in the tournament, but scheduled themselves in for a first round bye. We're incensed, but we need to work on winning our games. The host team barely wins in OT, and we follow it up by playing two guys who have obviously been training.

Our second game is against Team Brown, a twosome that looks harmless enough. But on the first throw, they're following up the throw with a quick bounce that almost gets us twice (see rule 2). Luckily, the bounce isn't going down for them. Unluckily, they don't seem to need it as they start burying shots without really seeming to try. We get in a big hole and need some magic to turn the game around if we're going to win. Chaz knocks down a cup, and as I step up, I tell him, "I can hit that cup." I focus, and nail the cup. He and I start going crazy...rule 7 means we just took the lead. Then we're told that, apparently, sometime in Round 1, that rule was abolished, and no one told us. This takes some wind out of our sail...we thought we had just put ourselves back in a position to win. Then, to make matters entirely worse, they tell us that not only does it not count for 3, but it doesn't count for 2 either, and all we get for me hitting the same cup is the balls back. How much sense does it make when a bounce counts for 2 but the same cup counts for nothing? We go on, following the loss of adrenaline from the quick turnaround, to lose.

In the third game, we put up a good fight against the team in red, but again become victimized by the rules as we lose two cups on a bounce and can't find the tempo that we played with earlier. We make some good shots down the stretch, but it isn't enough to keep us from being eliminated. All in all, it's a fantastic tournament, but kids, make the rules solid before you head off into battles! We had a great time, but several times felt victimized by sudden changes in the rules...but hey, you have to make your cups, and while I give both of us high marks on a solid level of consistency throughout the three games, we didn't make the cups necessary to take us to the next level. One thing that's fantastic about playing Beirut with brackets and a closed format like this is that it forces social interaction with opposing teams that grows throughout the night as games go on and beers get downed.

Before we can stick around and see who brings home the trophy, we take a walk and end up with a few drinks in hand at the Marina bars before finding the crepe stand at 11th and Folsom. Think Nutella/Banana/Chocolate, Strawberry/Chocolate and Nutella/Banana/Coconut crepes.

Next up...another week of Thanksgiving.