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.
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.
Card games first, then cup and table games. Newest at the top.
11/08/2026
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.
30/04/2026
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.
18/03/2026
Two teams, one pitcher, and a bottle cap that has to land flat. The scoring is simple; the disputes are always about the same three moments, so those are settled here in advance.
05/02/2026
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.
22/12/2025
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.
12/11/2025
One guess, one card, one drink. The game to open an evening with, because it takes eleven seconds to explain and works with any number of players.
08/10/2025
A climbing card game with a social hierarchy bolted on. How ranks are won and lost between hands, what the card exchange is for, and the limits worth putting on invented rules.