Slam pong

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Slam pong is a form of beer pong that has been popular at Dartmouth College and other colleges and universities in the northeastern United States. Unlike many other variants of beer pong, slam pong is a fast-moving game that retains some of the rules of table tennis but borrows inspiration from the rules and game play of volleyball. The name slam pong is derived from beer pong, which is in turn was derived from Ping Pong, a trademarked name for a brand of table tennis merchandise. The "slam" in slam pong refers to the action of slamming a table tennis ball into a plastic cup with a paddle, the fundamental way of scoring points in the game.

Contents 1 History 2 The table 3 Rules and game play 3.1 Serving 3.2 Volleys 3.3 Time outs and delays of game 3.4 Scoring 3.5 Variations 4 Slam pong in American culture 5 References

[edit] History

Beer Pong with paddles can trace its origin to the mid-1950s, when fraternity houses at Dartmouth College first began to experiment with drinking games that included the placement of a newly-available plastic cup full of beer on a table tennis table during a game. An Alpha Delta fraternity alumnus, David Thielscher, class of 1954, recalled in an interview for The Dartmouth newspaper that beer pong was played when he was an undergraduate. The objective was to try to hit the ball into the cups.^[1] The sport seems to have been played in a rather informal manner through the latter half of the 1950s and the 1960s and spread to a limited number of other college campuses in the northeastern United States.^[2]

Beer pong became recognized as an intramural sport at Dartmouth College in the 1970s, with individuals and teams most often representing fraternities and sororities. Rules of the game were standardized, and competitions were held at the fraternity and sorority houses. The game was played in a manner very similar to table tennis, with one beer cup placed on the table for each player. Beer pong at Dartmouth was the only college-sponsored drinking competition in the country, until 1977 when the college decided to discontinue its sponsorship of the games.^[3] Official derecognition would not reduce the level of beer pong activity at Dartmouth or elsewhere, but would lead to many new variations on the game.

Slam pong was one of the forms of the game that evolved from the traditional beer pong of the late 1970s. Slam pong retained the use of just one beer cup per player, with two players per team, but added the twist that a legal volley required the ball to strike the paddles of both players on a team before striking the table or beer cups. One of the earliest documented record of slam pong comes from Chris Robinson, Dartmouth College class of 1986, who recalled playing slam pong when he was an undergraduate.^[1] An article in the March, 1986 issue of Playboy magazine describes slam pong being played by the brothers of Psi Upsilon at Dartmouth.^[4] By the early 1990s, slam pong was played in nearly half of all Dartmouth College Greek organizations, and had been introdcued to other colleges including Bowdoin College, Bucknell University, Cornell University, Lehigh University, Princeton University, and Williams College, but by the middle of the decade was beginning to decline in popularity.^[3]. By the early 2000s, Slam pong had been almost totally eclipsed by other variations of beer pong, especially Beirut, one of the first variations of beer pong to be widely played across the country.

[edit] The table

A slam pong table resembles a table tennis table, with a few variations. A typical table surface is 3.0 meters long by 1.5 meters wide, and is at a height of roughly 0.75 meters above the floor. The net is often a piece of wood approximately 2.5 centimeters in height. It sits on the center line, and is not secured in any way. At each end of the table, there are circles on the center of the back line, such that when two plastic cups are placed in them, their rims touch. Some slam pong tables are table tennis tables that have been converted by the removal of the original mesh net and the painting of circles on the table surface for cup placement. Other slam pong tables are built specifically for use in slam pong, and may be built from materials chosen for durability or expense. Tables that best withstand repeated liquid spills on the table surface tend to remain useful for longer.

Although beer is the most common beverage used to play slam pong, in some circumstances it might be appropriate to use any fluid, including water. Two plastic cups are placed on each side of the table, one for each player in the game. The cups are placed on or near the back line. Both cups on each side must be touching each other in order for play to commence. The playing surface of the table may not be modified during the course of the game, except to replace the net if it gets knocked over. This particularly forbids the cleaning up of spilled fluid or the refilling of one's cup.

[edit] Rules and game play

Slam pong is played between opposing teams of two players. Each team has a server and a slammer. The server stands at the end of his or her side of the table, and the slammer stands at the side of the table most convenient to him or her (as a matter of course, a right-handed slammer will stand to his or her server's left, and a left-handed slammer will stand to her server's right.) Both slammers in a game can be located on the same side of the table. In this event, it is common courtesy for each slammer to attempt, to the best of her ability, to avoid the other slammer during the course of play. The roles of server and slammer can be switched by players on the same team during a game.

[edit] Serving

A legal serve requires that the ball comes in contact with the server's paddle, next contacts the server's side of the table, crosses the net (perhaps striking the net while doing so), and then strikes the opponents' side of the table. A service does require that the ball and paddle connect, so simply swinging at a ball and missing generally is not considered a service. If the server fails to complete a legal serve, usually because the ball misses the other team's side of the table, that same player must attempt a second serve. Each miss is called a fault, and a server is allowed one free fault before losing points. The ball is considered in play as soon as the service is completed, so if a softly served ball strikes an opponents' side of the table twice in a row before it is touched by a paddle, it is immediately dead.

[edit] Volleys

Following a legal serve by one team, the normal course of play involves the other team's attempt to score one or more points at the conclusion of a volley. A volley requires that the ball comes into contact with the paddle of one member of a team (usually the server), next contacts the paddle of the other team member (usually the slammer), and finally strikes the opposing team's cups or surface of the table. During the course of a volley, the ball may also come into contact with other "live" surfaces in the environment, as defined by local conventions. The ball is immediately dead if it ceases bouncing at any point or bounces on the floor. The volley is also dead if the ball strikes the surface of the table on the same side as the team that is attempting to complete a volley. Neither team may intentionally interfere with the other team's attempts to complete a volley. If a volley is successfully completed, but does not result in points, the other team must attempt to complete a subsequent volley, starting the moment the ball strikes their side of the table. Whichever side fails to complete a volley first must make the next serve. If, during a volley, a point is scored, the opposing team may save the volley as if the cups were an extention of the playing surface, though must win the volley in order for points not to be scored. The team that did not score must make the next serve.

[edit] Time outs and delays of game

A game may be paused in one of the several ways. The most common conventions used for pausing the game include covering the cups with a paddle, separating the cups so they no longer touch each other, or knocking over the net so that it is not longer upright. Play may not resume until all cups are touching, uncovered, and the net is upright in its correct position. The team that paused the game is responsible for restarting play.

[edit] Scoring

Points are earned through hits, sinks, and knockovers. During the normal course of a volley, a hit occurs when the ball strikes an opponent's cup at the conclusion of a volley, earning a point for the team whose cup was hit. A hit may also be earned if a valid serve hits the cups of the opposing team while it is still live and before either player of the opposing team can strike the ball with a paddle. A server may also score a point by double faulting (making two bad serves in a row). A sink occurs when, at the conclusion of a volley, the ball lands in an opponent's cup, earning two points for the team whose cup was hit. If a volley results in the ball striking an opponent's cup with such force that the cup falls over, that knockover earns points for the team whose cup was hit. Knockovers that occur outside of a volley, such as knocking over cups with a paddle or hand, earn points for the offending team. In all cases, until one team achieves victory, the team that earns points must make the next serve.

There are two primary variations for counting scoring and declaring the winner of a game. In the five-point game, hits count for one point, sinks count for two points, and knockovers count for five points.^[5] In the five-point game, whenever a team earns points, both players of that team are expected to drink one fifth of the total volume of their cup for each point. In the four-point variation of the game, hits count for one point, sinks count for up to two points, and knockovers count for up to two points.^[6] If a cup is half-full and gets sunk or knocked-over, that counts as only one point. Players in a four-point game are expected to drink half of a single cup for each point. A team cannot lose on a serve. If a team has only one point left, they cannot have the last point scored through their own ineptitude. However, if both teams have only a single point left, a team may "serve out" if other are waiting to play a subsequent game. In a five-point game, the first team to earn five points loses. In a four-point game, the first team to earn four points loses.

[edit] Variations

There are various styles of slam pong play. One style is characterized by fast, straight serves, and almost vertical, hard slams. At some Greek organizations, the style of play leans toward serves with more spin, or "finesse" slams that involve hitting the ball into the cups as softly as possible to display a slammer's accuracy. Some Greek organizations use slightly smaller tables or slightly higher nets, both of which tend to de-emphasize the role of a skilled server, as they make fast, hard serves more difficult. Because of the general difficulty of completing a successful volley in slam pong, games can last for much longer than other forms of beer pong, with matches of 20 to 30 minutes duration being common.

[edit] Slam pong in American culture

As one of the variations of beer pong, and a drinking game, slam pong has been the subject of academic research. Concerns over binge drinking on college campus have increased focus on games like beer pong and slam pong. Dartmouth College Anthropology Professor Hoyt Alverson published research work on the beer pong culture at Dartmouth in the early 2000s. Although slam pong had largely been replaced at Dartmouth and elsewhere by other forms of the beer pong game, Alverson noted that the variations played from 1999 through 2002 involved complex social processes. "Beer pong and similar drinking games are not played solely to achieve inebriation, Alverson finds, but instead serve as a competitive outlet for high-achieving students, and a structured atmosphere for peer interaction."^[7] Critics of beer pong contend that, regardless of their social nature, the games encourage binge drinking, and should be discouraged.^[8]

[edit] References

Cited References

General References