Cardinal Points

Issue date: 10/19/07 Section: FUSE

Media Credit: photo provided A scene from the World Series of Beer Pong held last year.

There are many ways to win a beer pong tournament.

Some people like to bounce the ball into the cup, others like the traditional way of throwing the ball.

Some people play better with a buzz. Others like to be completely sober. Which way would you choose to play if you had a chance to win $50,000 in a national tournament?

"Any way I had to, to win," senior Brian Cassano said.

From Jan. 1-5, 2008, the World Series of Beer Pong is being held at the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

The winning team gets $50,000 in prize money and the satisfaction of knowing they are the best beer pong players in the world.

Duncan Carroll is the man behind the scenes.

He, with the help of some of his friends, put this tournament together.

In his freshman year of college at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, he started playing beer pong. This started a serious love for the game.

He said: "Why we started it, well, it's a bit of a story. If you've never played beer pong, it might be hard to understand why anyone would bother to start a national tournament, but once you play a couple games and start to feel the competition, then you get it."

In 2005, the first tournament was held in Mesquite, Nevada. There were 83 teams and the top prize was $10,000.

It was a small event, but it was put together only a few months prior to the tournament.

"In many ways the WSOBP was an idea waiting to happen - I believe that if we didn't do it, someone else would have shortly thereafter," Carroll said.

According to BPONG.com, the Web site for the tournament, there are no official rules.

Teams on each side of the table get 10 cups, of which six are filled with beer and four with water.

Carroll said that for liability reasons they will not let participants consume more than one beer per hour on average.

Players who do not drink alcohol have the option of putting a different liquid in their cups.

One of the ways to shoot is to bounce the ball and the opposing team is allowed to swat it away before going into a cup.

Many people play that a bounce counts as two cups. The series has allowed bouncing, but players are not allowed to interfere with the shot.

Continued...

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