1. The basics: table, kit and the object of the game
If you can throw a ball underhand into a cup a couple of feet away, you can play beer pong. The depth is all in consistency under pressure and the late-game tactics — but the entry point is about as low as a game gets, which is exactly why a beer pong night fills up so easily.
The table
A regulation table is 8ft long and 2ft wide (about 2.4m by 0.6m), with a 10-cup triangle racked at each end — a tidy four-three-two-one pyramid pointing back toward the throwers. Each cup is a standard 16oz disposable cup, and consistent cup size matters because the whole rack geometry depends on it. A purpose-built folding table with painted cup positions is ideal, but any sturdy, waist-height surface of roughly the right length does the job for a social night.
Kit
Two racks of ten cups, a generous supply of ping-pong balls (they go astray constantly — keep spares), a rinse cup of clean water at each end for dunking the ball between throws, and a cloth and bin for spills. Cups are usually filled with a small amount of liquid — beer, or just as often water, with any drinking kept separate — both to give the rack some weight and because the "sink it and they drink it" tradition is the game's origin. For a competitive or mixed club, water-only cups are completely normal and keep the night about the throwing.
How a game works
Beer pong is a doubles game — two players a side, four to a table. The two pairs take turns, and on each turn a team throws two balls (one per player) at the opponents' rack, trying to land a ball in a cup. A cup with a ball in it is removed from the table (and, traditionally, drunk). Play alternates until one team has cleared all ten of the other team's cups. That team wins — unless the losing team gets a last-cup comeback, which is where the house rules come in. It's quick, it's dramatic, and a beginner and a sharpshooter can share a table without it being a massacre if you balance the pairs.
2. How cup scoring works in beer pong
Beer pong is scored on cups, not on a running tally of throws — which makes it one of the most intuitive games to keep score of. The unit is simple: one ball in one cup removes one cup.
Sinking cups
Each team throws two balls per turn. A ball that lands and stays in a cup means that cup is removed from the opponents' rack. Land both balls in cups and you've taken two cups in one turn — and in most house rules "balls back" applies: sink both and your team throws again. Miss both and it's the other team's turn. The game ends the moment a team's rack is empty.
Scoring a club night on points
For a club leaderboard you want a points number, not just "who won". The cleanest approach is to score each game on cups remaining: the winning pair removed all ten of the opponents' cups, and the losing pair is ranked by how many of their own cups were still standing when they lost. So a 10–7 win (losers had seven cups left) is more decisive than a 10–1 nail-biter, and that cup margin feeds a fairer ranking than a flat win/loss tally. If you run timed or fixed-throw rounds rather than playing to the empty rack, you simply rank pairs by cups sunk in the time or throws allowed. Either way, the number you record per game is cups — and that's exactly the points scoring beer pong uses in ClubLono.
Reracks
As cups are removed, the rack gets sparse and harder to hit. A rerack lets a team ask for the remaining cups to be re-formed into a tighter, easier shape — typically once or twice a game at agreed cup counts (a common rule is a rerack allowed at six cups and again at three). Decide your rerack rule before you start: how many, at what counts, and which shapes are allowed (a tight triangle, a diamond, a single line). It's the most-argued-about rule in the game, so settle it up front.
Redemption — the comeback that decides tight games
When one team clears the other team's last cup, most house rules give the losing team a redemption turn: they get to throw and, if they sink the remaining cup(s) the winners still have, the game goes to a sudden-death overtime with a smaller rack (often three cups a side). Redemption is what makes beer pong dramatic — a team can be 0–9 down and still claw it back. Just be explicit about whether you play it, because finishing a game and then discovering the opponents expected a redemption throw is a guaranteed argument.
3. Rules people get wrong
Beer pong is simple until two regulars disagree mid-game and the whole table stops. Settle these before they come up.
- Elbow over the line. The classic rule is that your throwing elbow must stay behind the end of the table when you release. Lean over and your throw is a foul and doesn't count. Most social nights are relaxed about it, which is exactly why deciding up front matters.
- "Balls back" only on two cups, not two throws. The bonus throw is earned by sinking both balls in cups — not by both players simply throwing. A common newcomer error is to expect another go after one make.
- Bounce shots and swats. Some house rules allow a bounce shot (bounce the ball off the table into a cup) to count as two cups — but the defending team is then allowed to swat or catch a bouncing ball before it lands. Decide whether bounces are in at all; if they are, the swat rule comes with them.
- A cup knocked over or out doesn't count as sunk. If a ball causes a cup to topple or be knocked off the table, that's not a made cup — sort whether it's removed, refilled or replaced before it happens.
- Reracks are on request, not automatic. A team has to ask for its allotted rerack on its turn; you don't silently re-form the cups. And you can't bank an unused rerack into a fistful of them later.
- Redemption is the loser's right, not optional for the winner. If you play redemption, the team that just lost its last cup gets the throw — the winners can't decline it to end the game early. Agree whether redemption is in before the first ball is thrown.
5. League formats for a beer pong club
Once you've got regulars who want to keep score over a season, a structured competition gives the night a spine. Beer pong is played as pairs but ranked like an individual sport, so these formats work for ranking either fixed pairs or — with shuffle doubles — individual players across changing partners.
Round robin
Everyone plays everyone. Best for: small fields (six to eight pairs) where you want a clear, fair winner and maximum games per pair. It's the fairest format there is and the natural fit for beer pong, but the fixtures balloon as numbers grow — twelve pairs is sixty-six games — so for bigger clubs, run round-robin groups feeding into a knockout final stage.
Ladder
Every pair (or player) sits on a rung. You challenge someone a rung or two above you; win and you swap places. Best for: ongoing, low-admin competition that runs in the background of your normal nights. Pairs self-organise the challenges, and the ladder rewards consistency without needing a fixture list. The downside is an inactive pair can squat near the top, so add a "must defend within X weeks" rule.
Box league
Split pairs into small groups ("boxes") of four to six of similar standard. Everyone in a box plays everyone else over a period, the top one or two are promoted to the box above and the bottom relegated. Best for: guaranteeing everyone competitive, evenly-matched games — nobody's stuck playing only the club's best or worst. It's the format that keeps the most people engaged and a brilliant fit for a club with a wide spread of ability.
Knockout
A straight bracket — lose and you're out. Best for: a one-night cup or a season-ending championship, where beer pong's last-cup drama really shines in front of a crowd. Quick and theatrical, but a beginner pair drawn against your best is done after one game, so seed the bracket (strong pairs spread across it) and consider a plate competition for first-round losers so the night isn't over for half the room by 9pm.
6. How ClubLono runs beer pong
ClubLono is built so the host can throw instead of refereeing a clipboard and a coin tin.
Beer pong runs on points scoring out of the box — log each game on cups (a clean 10, or the losing pair's cups-left for a tighter rank) and the app keeps the standings without you doing the maths between racks. The default event format is the round robin described above: pairs are drawn into games, every result is logged, and the table ranks the whole field automatically, so a one-table night with a dozen pairs keeps moving instead of stalling on "whose go is it?". A built-in rating updates per game, so partner draws and groupings stay sensible whether you're running fixed pairs or shuffle doubles.
The roster, the queue, the night calendar and the members-only chat are all on the free tier — a single club costs £0/month with no time limit and no feature cliff. Leagues — the ladders, box leagues, knockouts and round robins above, with automatic tables and fixtures — are a Premium feature, alongside multi-club hosting, kiosk mode for a tablet at the table, cross-club stats and DUPR export. Premium is £19.99/month or £199.99/year with a 14-day free trial on either, and on paid nights it drops the platform fee on each payment from 5% to 1% (the host always receives the payment less Stripe's 1.5% + 20p). Money goes straight to your bank account via Stripe — ClubLono never holds members' funds, there's no per-player fee, and a cancelled paid night auto-refunds every booked player.
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4. Running a fair social night
On a busy one- or two-table night, the format is the difference between everyone getting games and two loud pairs hogging the table for an hour. Because beer pong is doubles, the trick is to keep pairs moving through a structure rather than letting "winner stays on" stall the room.
Round robin — the recommended social format
The cleanest way to run a social beer pong night is a round robin: pairs are drawn into games, everyone plays a set run of opponents over the night, and each game's result is logged so the standings rank the whole field. Because the schedule is set rather than depending on who wins, the rotation keeps moving even with one table and a dozen pairs waiting — you call the next fixture up, the result goes in, the table updates. It's fair, it's fast, and it guarantees a beginner pair gets the same number of games as the club sharks rather than being knocked out early and standing around all night. It's the format ClubLono runs beer pong on by default for exactly this reason.
Sensible alternatives
Fair matchmaking
However you run it, keep an eye on pairing teams of roughly similar standard for the competitive bits and using shuffle doubles or handicaps for the mixed bits. A rating that updates as people play takes the guesswork out — you're not trying to remember who beat whom three weeks ago, or which newcomer turned out to be a ringer.