Asking for trouble
Pub games, I imagine, were probably developed as a way of settling drunken disputes.
I don’t know how popular these are across the globe, indeed, in the UK they are dying out. But I have had the fortune to play many of them over the years, sometimes whilst inebriated, other times sober. Here’s a run down of the ones I know:
Table Skittles
A ball attached to some string, attached to a post… the trick is to knock them all over. I imagine the skittle represent the people in the pub and the ball represents alcohol. I’m not sure who is responsible for the swinging.
Quoits
Based on an older game where people would throw horseshoes at a stake in the ground. Again, it was probably decided that throwing heavy metallic objects about in an alcoholic atmosphere was probably not a great idea. I really like the sound of the word ‘quoits’… it’s like a New Yorker saying ‘quits’.
Shove Ha’penny
The first time I played Shove Ha’penny I was holidaying in Southwold with my wife. The aim is to take turns in trying to shove a coin so that it lands between the lines on the board. Each time this is achieved you can cross that line off and aim for another one. Being unskilled at this game, both I and my fellow competitors found this a strangely difficult task. The game lasted over four hours and I have not played it since.
Darts
Thr last true pub game. Played with sharp metal spears. It seems that the trick to darts is to have a large beer-induced belly, since I have seen the professionals on television and they all sport one. As such I am way too skinny to compete on anything but an amateur level. I’m also not sure about the injury rates for this ’sport’ – I suspect the thrower is the least likely to be hit.
Obviously I’m familiar with darts, otherwise I’ve seen all of these (except Quoits) on television. I believe they played Shove Ha’penny on the holodeck in Star Trek the other day.
They did!
You know how hard it is to find a ha’penny these days? They’ve been out of circulation for years…
I’d love it if the holodeck replicated that too… yeah you can play, but first you have to ring up most of your old relatives, and talk to the grumpy old bloke in the pub to get hold of what you need.
Well, they play horseshoes around here, but not in the pubs, and not while drinking. (It’s a semi-dry county… weird!)
Oh, where I grew up it was definitely traditional to play horseshoes while drinking beer — but not in pubs. At cook-outs, rather… guys with flame, slabs of bloody meat, cheap beer — hurling heavy metal objects alternately in different directions through the air.
Ahh, real men again.
I bet the horse shoes were the size of jet engines…
Heads up…
I very, very rarely play pub games. When I do happen to wander into a pub (not often), I have a mission and I don’t care to distract myself from said mission with other tasks.
Mission in a pub? Intriguing…
Your mission, should you accept it, is to render yourself speechless and legless. This gin will self destruct after reading.
Unfortunately for everyone, I have never been rendered speechless by alcohol. Quite the opposite, I’m afraid.
Is this a secret mission? Or can you tell us the finer details?
I bet it is to simply score free booze, I wish I was female, then I could have even less liver.
Scoring free booze is simple. Hardly counts as a mission, secret or otherwise.
My favourite version of darts is to see how badly I can scare the shit out of my best mate when he’s standing right next to the board writing up the scores. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, gets the blood pumping and the high-pitched squeals going like a steel spike juddering in the fibre-board inches from your hand. Or your head.
Points are awarded for the most people standing around watching who suddenly stop talking.
Franzy Darts – It’s good for your heart.
Or not, depends how good the throwing player is.
Well, i’d say it’s not such a bad thing having to talk to the grumpy old bloke glued to the bar, somehow forces inter-generational meetings, doesn’t it? I’ve always seen the pubs as a socializing place where you could meet people in a friendly fashion around good ales (or not so good ones sometimes, you couldn’t imagine how distateful stouts are here).
Anyway, here in France, the only one game played from the above is darts… Shame the others gave way on the process of transfusing pubs in that country. But, I imagine that’s the way civilization goes on, keeping to the cutting edge.
My husband John and I are just starting to get interested in pool. The eight-ball kind. I don’t see that on your list… is it not played in bars where you live? (And is it called something different? What exactly is the difference between pool and billiards?)
Used to be that you couldn’t go anyplace to play pool without being choked with secondhand smoke, which gives John hives on his face… but now that smoking is banned in pretty much every public place in Minneapolis, we’re finding the game fairly entertaining. Currently John is a lot better at calculating angles and spin than I am, and the only advantage I have is that John has an unfortunate tendency to sink balls he’s not supposed to (his opponent’s balls, the cue ball, the eight ball before its time). But I just know that he’s going to get a lot better really fast, and then I won’t stand a chance against him without huge handicaps in my favor.
You’re right, I forgot to add pool… we do have a differnt version here with just two different colours, but the 8-ball version is becoming more popular in the dedicated halls.
And that’s the thing. Pool tables take up a lot of room… room that could be filled with drinking customers, so they tend have slowly disappeared from most pubs as they get re-furnished.
Aww, remembering the days when a decent pub fight included pool cues and smudges of blue chalk under your eyes… Oddly I recently heard about a mini-riot in a UK prison where the pool table became the focus of the action. A lot of projectiles…
Ouch, pool balls hurt as weapons, my teeth bare record of their effectiveness.
There is Pool, Billiards, Snooker and one other (I think).
I don’t play much in pubs, too many fights over the rules. Plus I can break glasses with the cue too easily.
My favorites of all pub games are pool and darts. There are so many types of games you can play when it comes to both pool and darts, and they are also great games to get your drunken mates involved in too.
I have doubts regarding darts. I play it, but never spend time in learning it deeply. I’ve never played American Darts, what is the object of the game?
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