In the spirit of Green Key, Hodes and I decided to switch things up this week, and have a good ol' fashioned drinking game argument. Pong vs. Beirut is a topic of debate every time Dartmouth students head home. I'll admit, I admire Hodes for having the courage to argue the notion that beirut is actually superior to pong, especially in light of the fact that the majority of the Dartmouth student body resoundingly prefers pong. But, if a beatdown is what Hodes wants, a beatdown is what Hodes will get.
One of the most common arguments those who defend beirut use is the "it's more social" one. Garbage. While players can certainly talk more often throughout a game of beirut, what's to prevent pong players from taking all the time they need to socialize in between points? That's right, absolutely nothing. I am a big fan of the dynamic created by pong, in which players can focus their energies on both intense competition and quality socializing separately, an ideal scenario for anyone who wants the best of both worlds.
In addition to being a more "complete" game from a standpoint of competition and social conduciveness, the amount of athletic skill required to be a successful pong player vastly surpasses that of the lowly beirut. Let's review: beirut involves players standing at either side of a (usually) very short table, and lobbing ping pong balls into absurdly large red party cups. Does anyone out there want to tell me what about that is even remotely challenging? Players have all the time they need to position themselves for their lobs, and their success is not affected by the opposing team. Additionally, most forms of beirut support the "re-rack," which allows players to re-position the opposing team's formation to tailor it to their liking. Could this game get any easier? Yeah, I suppose it could, if Dixie started to manufacture even larger red party cups. Let's hope they don't.
Pong, the basic rules of which I need not explain, involves a direct element of competition in which teams and players must account for the opposing team player's shot. Five weeks ago Hodes and I had our Woods/Federer argument, and I explained that golf was not as challenging a sport as tennis because players do not have to account for an opposing team's style. Consider the analogous situation here. In addition to the obvious differences in game play, the amount of hand-eye coordination required to be good at pong is worlds greater than that of beirut. Hitting a ping pong ball with a paddle to a specific location across a table is a difficult task, while lobbing a ping pong ball into red party cups is just, well, not.
If you put a well-coordinated individual up against the planet's best beirut players, the novice would at least keep things competitive. But if you put Roger Federer (the best tennis player in the world would probably put up the best fight) against Brandon Fenn '07 in a seven game series of one-on-one tree, Fenn would definitely be the one with the broomstick in his hands by the end of the series. Beruit might be fun, but pong is more dependent on actual skill. So please, don't play any beirut this week, because if you do, I will come knock those red party cups right off your table. Have a great Green Key.
