Drinking Card Games

Drinking card games are a popular pastime at college parties and other in-home events where large groups of people gather. While the point of these games is usually to get the participants to drink as much alcohol as possible, some of these games can be fun even without any beer or liquor involved.

These card games do not require a special deck of cards. It's possible to play all of the following games using a standard poker deck. If the deck has jokers in it, the host should remove them before getting started.

For setup, the dealer should take one card from the deck for each person playing. This should include only one king and only one ace. The rest of the cards should be numbered cards.

1. Give each player one card face down. The person who gets the king is designated the cop. The person who gets the ace is designated the robber.
2. Have all players put their cards on the table face down, then stare at the other players. The robber now has to wink at one person, ideally without the other players noticing.
3. The person that gets winked at says "I've been robbed."
4. The cop reveals himself or herself and chooses one person he or she thinks is the robber.
5. The targeted person turns over his or her card. If he or she is the robber, this person takes a drink. If it is not the robber, the cop drinks the number of times equal to the number on the person's card.
6. The cop continues to guess players until pinpointing the robber. Then, play starts again.

If the robber winks at the cop, he or she has to drink a number of drinks the players decide on before the game begins. This game works best with six or more players.

This game does not require much setup. The dealer fans out the deck face down so that each player can choose any of the 52 cards on his or her turn. Then he or she places a large plastic cup in the center of the table. Starting with the player on the dealer's left, each player draws a card and completes a specific action, discarding the card afterward. The actions are specified by the card's value, as follows:

• Aces are socials, meaning that everyone takes a sip of his or her drink.
• Two through six are numbered cards. The person who draws it must drink the amount of drinks equal to the number.
• Sevens are waterfalls. Everyone starts drinking. The person who played the card gets to stop first. Everyone else cannot stop until the person to his or her right stops.
• Nines are thumbs down. The person who draws the card discreetly puts a thumb on the table. All players must do the same. The last one to do so has to drink.
• Tens are rhymes. The person who draws the card says a word. The person to the left must say a word that rhymes with it. This continues around the table. The first person who can't come up with a word, or repeats one already said, drinks.
• Jacks require all the men to drink.
• Queens require all the women to drink.
• Kings are California Kings. Each player who draws one gets to make up a rule that all players, except him or her, must follow for the rest of the game. He or she also pours the contents of his or her current beverage into the plastic cup.

The player who draws the last king must drink the contents of the cup. This ends the game.

There are dozens of other drinking card games. Instructions for many are available online at the following sites:

• iDrink
• Drinks Mixer
• Beer Fun

Playing these drinking card games can sometimes cause players to become quite intoxicated without realizing it. To minimize this risk, it is smart to play using beer instead of hard liquor. Also, know that when a player is asked to take one drink, it can be as little as a small sip. It doesn't have to be an entire bottle or can.

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