Skip to the main content
The House Pour Home bar, glassware and hosting
Section Last entry 11/08/2026

Drinking games, written the way a table plays them

Every one of these games exists in a dozen versions, and every version is somebody's correct one. The rule sheets here separate the two: first the base game, the version you can sit down to anywhere and be understood, then the house variations listed on their own, so a table can pick what it wants before the first card turns.

Each sheet says what you need, how the round moves, how the game ends, and where arguments usually start. The rules are written for adults of legal drinking age, and each of them plays perfectly well with water, a soft drink or a low alcohol beer if that is what the room wants.

On the shelf

The rule sheets

Card games first, then cup and table games. Newest at the top.

Playing cards spread face down in a broken ring around a pint glass on a kitchen table, one card lifted by a hand, warm ceiling light
Card game

11/08/2026

Kings Cup: the rules, card by card

The full deck read one value at a time, the four kings and the cup they fill, and the house variations that keep coming up. Written so that nobody spends the evening arguing about what a seven means.

A tight ring of playing cards laid face down around a single can on a coffee table, one card already flipped, lamp light from the right
Card game

30/04/2026

Circle of Death: a deck, a can, and ten rules

Close cousin to Kings Cup, played around a single can rather than a shared cup, with a stricter idea of when the game ends. The break in the ring is the whole tension of it.

A coin caught in mid bounce above a hard table top heading toward a small glass, hands blurred around the edge of the frame, close low angle
Table game

05/02/2026

Quarters: the bounce, the chain, the table

The oldest bar game that needs nothing but a coin and a hard surface. Where the chain rule comes from, why a soft table kills the game, and the two legal ways to hold the coin.

Two rows of people facing each other across a long table, cups upside down at the edge, one person mid flick, motion blur on the hands
Team game

22/12/2025

Flip Cup: how to run a fair race

Teams, lanes, the start signal and the one measurement that stops a race being decided by who has the longest arms. Also the flat cup problem and how to fix it.