Digital beer pong table PONGConnect on display at Black Sheep Bar & Restaurant located at Macau, China. (Photo : Facebook)
Hong Kong bar owners tinker the rules of traditional beer pong as they realize that it would be more profitable if beer pong games were quicker.
The biggest innovation is what they call the "double-cherry" rules. If you hit the first cup twice, 6 of the 10 cups are eliminated, which speeds up the game.
After the first turn is over on a double-cherry rule game, other cup combinations will result in different rewards. One of which is called the "ball in combo" which lets a player eliminate three cups if he/she scored two balls into two different cups during the same turn.
The rules also include the "first blood." It will let a player eliminate three cups on the opponent side when he/she scored one ball into the front cup on their first turn. The "single cherry" will let a player eliminate four cups after scoring two balls into the same cup (other than the front cup) on his/her first turn.
"Double cherry is like a hat trick. I suggest people who aren’t good enough to accomplish it should go home and practice," said Michael Chan, a former Carlsberg coach of beer pong in Hong Kong.
Three-time World Series of Beer Pong champion Michael Popuerlarski said: "First blood is the oddest to me because it is the easiest cup to hit. So to get awarded for three cups is a lot."
Atalon Ventures Limited, a local startup, incorporated these new-style rules into their digital beer pong tables PongCONNECT. PongCONNECT features LED lights that turn fancy when a player scores on one of its cup-detecting pods.
Players will also be able to track game statistics through a data-analysis app of the digital beer pong table.
Ronald Chiu, Atalon's president said: "I played under the traditional rules while a student at the University of Southern California, but I felt the double-cherry rules could turn beer pong from a party game into a commercialized activity."
"More than 60 bars in Hong Kong now have PongCONNECT tables and 50,000 games are played each month," he added.
