There’s nothing better than having drinks with friends but if you want to make it a little interesting, why not set up a card game.
Sure, you could play poker and for no other reason the ability to play with the chips makes this game well worthwhile but there are also a couple of games you can play.
Whether you are after a straight drinking game or something that requires a little bit more skill, card game drinking gives you a way to tell who out of your friends is the joker or the queen.
But don’t just think that drinking games involve beer. There are also a whole host of cocktails that are perfect for a card night. So pull one off our list, ‘cause the dice wait for no man.
Up & Down the River
Drinking card games are diverting the trend of parties and gatherings from just regular drinking and dancing to playing card games coupled with the drinking of course. Its gameplay is as follows.
- Two decks of cards are dealt. One player is appointed the dealer. Each player is given four cards, placed face up in front of them.
- The dealer draws the card, and whosoever has the same card will take a drink.
- If any player has multiples of that card, then the equivalent number is taken as drinks.
- For the second round, the amount of drinks taken for a single card is doubled.
- After the fourth round, any player having the combination of the fifth card drawn by the dealer gets to give away four drinks. Four individual players or just one single player will be asked to drink those four glasses.
- The dealer then places the third card over the first two and players having that combination can give away a total of up to eight drinks. The game restarts after this.
Circle of death
The circle of death drinking game closely resembles Kings. The equipment required for this game is just one deck of cards and a middle cup. The player draws one card on his turn and then performs actions based on his card and colour. Players sit around a circular table and place a nasty drink in the centre. The cards are dealt and placed face down around the centre glass. Each player picks up cards, one at a time. As soon as each player picks up a card, he/she has to perform an action associated with that card. Below are the rules for each card:
- King: Come up with a rule, and show everybody who the real king is – at least for the game. This player will then have the ability to undo any previous King’s rule. The player drawing the fourth King will get to drink the middle cup, though.
- Queen: ask a random question from another player, and that player, in turn, will ask another one from a different player. Any player who would not be able to answer any of the questions asked to him will lose the game.
- Jack: Become the Thumb Master of the game! This player will be entitled to put his thumb on the table at any instance, and all others would have to do the same and the one who loses this race, loses the game.
- 10: this player will call out a category, and all the other players, just like in the game Categories, will start listing out things that fall into that category. Make sure you think before you speak. Calling out the same thing twice might get you thrown out of the game, or party perhaps.
- 9: the player will call out a word, and the rest of the players will have to say words that rhyme with the earlier one. Anyone who fails to do so will lose the game and get to drink.
- 8 & below: if the colour of the drawn card is red, the player will have to drink the same number of glasses as on that of the card. Otherwise, they are given out to the players.
- Ace: when an ace is drawn, every player will start waterfall, initiating with the player who chose the card. This means that everyone will start gulping their drinks after the person to their right stats doing this, and they cannot stop until that person to the right does. This is also referred to as the waterfall drinking game.
Three Man
For this game, a pair of dice is required, along with the compulsory item-drinks! Players gather around a circular table with their drinks and one of the players is appointed as the “Three Man”. The Three Man will roll the dice every time, and another player will also roll the die. The result depends on what the two die to add up to. For this, the rules are as follows:
- 7: the person sitting to the right of the player will take a drink
- 11: the person sitting to the right of the player will take a drink
- 9: Each player will drink
- A sum of 3: The Three Man will drink
- 4 and an Ace: Everyone will fall to the floor, and the last one to do so will have to drink.
- 5 and an Ace: Everyone has to point to the ceiling, and the last one to do so will have to drink.
- Doubles: When the doubles are rolled on to the table, the player can direct anyone to drink, including the Three Man.
- The game continues like this until every player in the game has had their turn. After this, a new Three Man is appointed.
Pyramid
Players sit around a circular table, and the player dealing the cards will set them face down in a 6-5-4-3-2-1 pyramid format. Then he gives out each player four cards, and those too, face down. The game rules are as follows:
- Each player will take a good look at their cards, and the order because they won’t be allowed to do so again. Excellent memory skills come in handy!
- Each card from the pyramid is flipped over, one at a time.
- Players will assign drinks, based on whether they had the card or are making a bluff.
- If another player assigns you a drink, you can call a bluff if you desire to. If this would be a wrong call for bluff, the player would have to gulp down two times the drinks he was initially assigned. If otherwise, then the bluffer drinks twice the drinks he was initially assigned.
- Each row of the pyramid represents the number of drinks given out.
