It is some college students' fantasy to be near hundreds of the best beer pong players in the world on the Las Vegas strip, competing for the title.
Eric Welch gets to live that dream. He will travel to Las Vegas to play in the World Series of Beer Pong IV, being held at the Flamingo Hotel & Casino. The series is a five-day event that will take place Jan. 1 to 5 and pits the top 344 teams against each other for a $50,000 grand prize payout, according to bpong.com.
Welch and his teammate, Jonathan Gilbert, are Fresno State seniors who have participated in two series, he said
To stay on top of their game and keep track of their shooting percentage, they train Monday through Friday with water, and practice at weekend parties with beer, Welch said.
Their team, Shred the Gnar, has ripped through its competition so far this year, he said. By winning two satellite tournaments and coming in second and fifth at others, they won the $1,000 buy-in to the World Series of Beer Pong and a four-night stay at the Flamingo.
"We've beat the top teams on the West Coast, including the team that won last year," Welch said.
At the World Series, Shred the Gnar will sport sponsored T-shirts and hats, he said. Companies such as n-icerack.com - a Web site that sells freezable beer pong racks - and prettyhurt.com - a Web site that sells fashionable crutches, slings and clothing - pay for advertising on the players' apparel.
Last year, his team ranked 55th out of 300 teams, but he hopes to place in the top 10 this year, Welch said.
Senior Anthony Sackman is a friend of Welch and competed with him at the World Series of Beer Pong in 2006.
Sackman said they did well the first day, but things went downhill from there.
"If we played like we did on the first day, we might have made it to the third day, but we got too drunk on the second day," Sackman said. "We were way too drunk at 11 in the morning to function the whole day."
The duo was filmed at the competition and was briefly featured in a documentary called "Last Cup: Road to the World Series of Beer Pong."
"Beer pong is growing in popularity and slowly sneaking into different media outlets," Welch said, citing shows such as "Greek" and "Big Brother," which featured the sport. "It's cool to see it where you don't expect it."
Inspired by the World Series of Beer Pong, Sackman and his roommate, senior Steven Tuscher, founded the Wednesday Night Beer Pong League this semester and held the first event Aug. 27, Tuscher said.
The weekly event has had an ever-increasing turnout, and as many as 150 people have shown up on a single night, but only 32 teams are allowed to enter the tournament, he said.
An early slot reservation and a $10-per-team buy-in is required to participate in the competition, Tuscher said. Cups and balls are provided by the house and paid for with the recycled beer cans collected throughout the night.
The founders of the league plan to resume play again at the beginning of next semester, Sackman said. He also hopes to keep the Wednesday Night Beer Pong League running after he and Tuscher graduate in spring, by passing down the tradition.
Megan McCourt can be reached at mmccourt@theorion.com
Some of the rules to be enforced at the Beer Pong Tournament in Las Vegas include:
- Shooting and table sides
- In preliminaries, first possession will be determined by random selection. Each team will receive a printed schedule which will indicate which team has choice of first shot. The team not receiving choice of shot gets to choose which side of the table his team will shoot from. Grabbing
- Bounce shots: Players are allowed to let their shots bounce off of the table before making it to the cup. Bounce-shots may not be interfered with until they have made contact with a cup. It should be noted that bounce shots do not count for two cups. Reformation
- Cups must be reformed at six, three and one cups remaining Rollbacks - "The Pope's Rule"
- In general, if both players on a team sink their shot on the same turn, that team will get one additional rollback shot, not two. The only exception to this rule is during redemption shots in a finals game, in which case both balls are rolled back.
Leaning will be permitted, with the following considerations:
- A player may not place a hand, foot, leg or whatever on the table in order to gain additional reach or leverage. Distractions
- Players may not fan, blow, or otherwise intentionally create an air current surrounding the cups in play. Cup Interference
- Drifters: In the event that a cup drifts out of its position while a ball attempting to sink those cups is in mid-flight, the shot may be re-tossed only in the event that it was not an airball, i.e. the ball must have had a chance of making the cup that drifted. Ending the Game
- One cup vs. one cup remaining when the last cup is sunk. In this case the rule is, "Take as many shots as you have balls remaining on your side."
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