One day I received a call from my friend Mason who was busy doing some serious online research. He told me of a beirut competition called the World Series of Beerpong, which was held yearly in Las Vegas (this would be the second year). Not only did the tournament exist, but the winning team would recieve $20,000... This was great news.
(If you've never played beirut: go look up the rules online; call up a couple friends; and then have them help you move the rock you've been living under. Except you, mom. Yes, we are bowling.)
Mason and I booked our flights for Vegas and continued our regular routine of playing beirut on weekends and the ocassional weekday afternoon...
At the airport in Vegas we met up with a group of fellow teams, and borded what was technically a limosine, but perhaps more accurately described as a stretch station wagon. The burly driver looked like he'd be good in a fight, except for his right hand which was wrapped in bandages. He seemed like a nice guy.
Turns out the actual tournament was held in a place called Mesquite, Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas. A quick 45 minute drive through the desert and one arrived at our hotel called the Oasis. The slogan for Mesquite on our hotel brochures read, "It's Mesquite!"--nothing dishonest about that. We came up with our own slogan, "Reno's Reno..." At least the complete lack of anything to do helped us focus on what was important, and that was winning the national competition of our favorite drinking game.
The actual World Series of Beerpong was held in an event tent in the vacant parking lot behind the local McDonald's. And after three hard days of waking up at 9:00am and then promptly drinking all day, we found ourselves at the 2007 World Series of Beerpong final table.
As the final tournament wore down, Mason and I were focussed on our game. We shut out any distractions and simply outplayed the competition. Before we knew it, we were surrounded by rows of rowdy fans, multiple television cameras, and were playing a game of beirut for $20,000--the highest stakes on record in the history of the game. Oh, and were we pretty hammerslammed.
Bottom line, we lost. One of the opposing players had a perfect game and didn't miss a single shot (the beirut equivalent of pitching a no-hitter.) Mason and I still received a check for $2,500 for our efforts, but essentially we spent the rest of the day in complete silence spare intermittent four letter words.
Our team name was "Pwntrain" and we got owned. Youtube it.
- Ian Graham, December 12, 2007
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"It's a sport-- it just happens to involve alcohol."
-Some dude
