LAS VEGAS - Don't let the smell of beer and the rock music fool you: Beer pong is a serious game. Some dare say a sport.
Granted, they tend to be grinning and drinking when they say it. There was plenty of both going on this weekend at the World Series of Beer Pong IV, a loud and sloshy annual tournament that elevates a college fraternity house staple that includes ping pong balls and beer to an (almost) serious competition.
With a $50,000 prize on the line, more than 400 teams flocked to the Flamingo hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip for a chance to bring their skills out of the bar and into the big time. They wore matching uniforms and talked about focus and strategy.
Some also wore matching hot pants and talked about drinking more Pabst Blue Ribbon, the official beer of the tournament.
But the winner, Ron Hamilton, 25, of Brentwood, N.Y., preferred liquor to beer, and said he got ready for Sunday's play by drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels.
"The key today was me getting real drunk and my partner not missing, and us coming out and proving we're the best," Hamilton said shortly after winning the top prize with Michael Popielarski, 25, of Massapequa, N.Y.
Hamilton said he and his partner - who form the team Smashing Time - met three years ago at a bar in Long Island.
"We've been unstoppable ever since," he said. Hamilton said he planned to eliminate his personal debt and pay part of his mother's mortgage with the winnings.
The game is played with cups of beer lined up like bowling pins on two ends of a 4.2 metre table. Team members alternate trying to toss a ping pong ball into the cups. The team that lands all the cups wins, the losers drink.
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SWIVEL HIPS SAYS:
Hmm . . . The World Series of Beer Pong - Beer Pong, eh? Sounds like a sport SINC would really enjoy!
