Slap Cup: Official Rules

Make your shot and slap the cup of the player ahead of you before the player behind you slaps yours. Most slaps wins.

Six or more players stand around a large table. Set about twenty cups in a cluster in the center, each about a third full. Two players on opposite sides each take an empty cup and a ball.

Rule 1. The chase

Rule 1.1. On the whistle, both starting players begin shooting. A shot must bounce off the table into your own cup.

Rule 1.2. Shoot until the ball goes in. When it does, pass your cup and ball to the player on your left, who starts at once.

Rule 1.3. If you make your shot on your first attempt, you may pass to any player who isn't already holding a cup.

Rule 2. The slap

Rule 2.1. If you make your shot while the player on your left is still shooting, slap their cup off the table. You score one point.

Rule 2.2. The slapped player takes a cup from the center, finishes it, and uses it as their new cup. They take the ball, and keep shooting.

Rule 2.3. The slap is to the cup. Contact with the player is not a slap; it is an infraction, and the point doesn't count.

Rule 2.4. A ball that bounces into a center cup is not a make. The shooter finishes that cup and keeps shooting.

Rule 3. Ending

Rule 3.1. The game ends when the center cups run out. The player with the most slaps wins. The last player slapped racks the next game.

• Stack instead of slap. Not a house rule. That is Rage Cage.
• A full center cup for the last slap. The last player slapped finishes a cup filled to the top. Approved.
• Slapped cups must land on the floor to count. Commissioner's Discretion. The Commission has seen the floor afterward.
• Play to a set score, such as five slaps. Approved.

Is Slap Cup just Rage Cage? No. Rage Cage stacks; Slap Cup slaps and keeps score. See the full ruling in Part 6.

A player slaps a cup that was already empty and set down. Does it count? Yes, if its owner was still shooting. A cup that hasn't had its shot made is in play, whatever is in it.

• Slap. Signal: the Official sweeps one palm across the other.
• Contact with a player. Penalty: the point doesn't count; a warning (Provision 4.9). Signal: warning (Provision 7.1).

Slap Cup is Rage Cage with a scoreboard and less patience. Tables that play both should agree which one they are playing before the first slap, not after it.

Fill the center cups with any non-alcoholic drink. Slapping is unchanged.