Beer Croquet (official)

Summer is coming. And I feel compelled to share one of my favorite activities. 

Some call it The Queen's game. Others, poison. For me it's got a different name. Beer Croquet, the sport of champions. It combines two activities, both of which should be obvious. If you don't know how to play Croquet, familiarize yourself. 

As you're familiarizing yourself you're probably saying... "God... what the fuck? But... none of this makes much sense. I'm confused. There's like eight different games going on here and they're all calling themselves croquet but they've got virtually nothing to do with one another besides that. Fuck. this. noise." 

Don't worry, it's a natural reaction. Our game obeys the basic rules of croquet but has a slightly different, much clearer objective. The goal is to be last man standing. It's a survivor game. Here's how it works: Once you've hit the final stake you can kill other players. By that I mean if you roquet (hit) their ball they are removed from the game and have lost. You can still get extra swings for passing through wickets and roqueting people but only if you continue to do so in the proper order.

So, additional stuff:

1) This is pretty much the most important rule. You must be holding a beer at all times. Or some other beverage. Whatever floats your boat. The point is, it's fucking hard to swing cause you've only got one hand.

2) When you finish your beer you can throw it anywhere you like on the course to fuck with other peoples' balls. However, you must throw it from where you're standing when you finish. You cannot hold onto an empty container. That is a penalty (more on that later). Throws can be made out of turn. There's some strategy to it.

3) Name your mallet and respect it. (I admit this one's more of a guide line)

4) Last person to the first stake (the halfway point) is the bitch, with all the ramifications you'd expect for being it, like name calling and borderline sexual harassment  Really most importantly though, anyone can roquet and kill the bitch, even if they haven't finished the game yet. If that sounds like gibberish to you, you did a pretty poor job familiarizing yourself with croquet and you should generally feel bad about your reading comprehension.

5) First person to reach the halfway point is your king. You must pay him AND HIS MALLET (again, more of a guideline) due respect. But you should also fear the king. And with good reason. Because the king can kill you now. Additionally: any beers he throws on the course as king are... I dunno... let's call them Royal Landmines. I don't think we ever had an actual name for them. Anyways, he crushes them and if you hit one you die. This does not apply if he throws it into you, you can have a chance to hit around it. Note: the king can be killed by his own landmines. This ain't Narnia.

5-a: The king can not kill you until the turn following his... I guess we'll call it his coronation, technically. Just for fairness' sake, so you can attempt to escape him.

5-b: The king is the final arbiter when it comes to penalties.

6) If you are killed you must finish your drink.

7) If you are killed you can restart from the beginning after a full turn cycle has completed. Note: this is a good way to black out. (optional)

PENALTIES: 

Again, these are more pirates' code than constitution. Penalties are given as the game goes along. You must take a drink of your beer if you are penalized. I'm flexible as to what penalties we should have but here are some obvious ones:

1) Out of order play

2) Delay of game

3) False accusation

4) Bad shot (when you hit the ball with part of the mallet that isn't the head)

5) Worse shot (when you manage to hurt someone or break something)

6) Stupidity (if you have to ask where the next wicket is, you're stupid and have to drink for it, cause that'll definitely sharpen you up...)

7) Murder (if you knock a wicket out of the ground)

8) Setting a drink down

9) Wrong ball

10) Unsportsmanlike conduct (camping, cherry picking, overly involved, basically don't be a dick and take things too seriously)

11) Holding an empty (almost forgot)

12) Nursing

Any questions?

Go play.