A pub game is one which is traditionally played inside or outside a

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

or bar. Most pub games date back many years and are rooted in village culture. Many derive from older outdoor sports. Pub games can be loosely grouped into

throwing games Throwing sports, or throwing games, are physical, human competitions where the outcome is measured by a player's ability to throw an object. The two primary forms are throwing for distance and throwing at a given target or range. The four most p ...

dice games Dice games are games that use or incorporate one or more dice as their sole or central component, usually as a random device. The following are games which largely, if not entirely, depend on dice: Collectible dice games Patterned after the s ...

, card games, board games, cue and ball games,

bat and ball games Bat-and-ball games (or safe haven games) are field games played by two opposing teams. Action starts when the defending team throws a ball at a dedicated player of the attacking team, who tries to hit it with a bat and run between various safe are ...

, coin pushing/throwing games, and

drinking games Drinking games are games which involve the consumption of alcoholic beverages and often enduring the subsequent intoxication resulting from them. Evidence of the existence of drinking games dates back to antiquity. Drinking games have been banned ...

History

In his book, ''Beer and Skittles'',

Richard Boston Richard Boston (29 December 1938 – 22 December 2006) was an English journalist and author, a rigorous dissenter and a belligerent pacifist. An anarchist, toper, raconteur, marathon runner and practical joker, he described his pastimes as "so ...

claims that the first regulation concerning national control of pubs was about pub games; Henry VII's statute of 1495 restricted the playing of "indoor games which were distracting Tudor pubmen from archery". Many of pub games owe their origins to older outdoor sports, adapted and transformed over time for indoor play, either for convenience, or to allow publicans to maintain their teams during the

off-season In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of Se ...

. Gaming activities associated with pubs included

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ga ...

s such as

cribbage Cribbage, or crib, is a card game, traditionally for two players, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. It can be adapted for three or four players. Cribbage has several distinctive features: the cribbag ...

, throwing games such as

darts Darts or dart-throwing is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small sharp-pointed missiles known as darts at a round target known as a dartboard. Points can be scored by hitting specific marked areas of the boa ...

, physical sports such as

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

, and blood sports such as

cock fighting A cockfight is a blood sport, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years. The first documented use of the ''word'' gamecock, denoting use of the cock as to a "game", a sport, pastime or ente ...

. Balls Pond Road in Highbury, London, was named after an establishment run by Mr Ball that had a pond out the back filled with ducks, where drinkers could, for a certain fee, go out and take their chance at shooting the creatures.

Notable pub games

Pub games can be loosely grouped into

, card games, board games, cue and ball games,

, coin pushing/throwing games, and

Throwing games

Darts

A game which involves the throwing of small missiles at a circular target, called a dartboard. It is one of the few traditional pub games that remains popular to the present day and is played in many countries. When played at a professional level the game adheres to a specific board design and set of rules, but as a pub game it can encompasses several variants, such as 'Cricket'.

Aunt Sally

Traditionally played in pubs and fairgrounds. An Aunt Sally was originally a figurine head of an old woman with a clay pipe in her mouth, or subsequently a ball on a stick. The object was for players to throw sticks at the head in order to break the pipe. The game bears some resemblance to a

coconut shy A coconut shy (or coconut shie) is a traditional game frequently found as a sidestall at funfairs and fêtes. The game consists of throwing wooden balls at a row of coconuts balanced on posts. Typically a player buys three balls and wins when eac ...

, or skittles. Today, the game of Aunt Sally is still played as a pub game in

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

. The ball is on a short plinth about 4 inches (10 cm) high, and is known as a 'dolly'. The dolly is placed on a dog-legged metal spike and players throw sticks or short battens at the dolly, trying to knock it off without hitting the spike.

Devil among the tailors

A form of table skittles. The game involves 9 small skittles arranged in a 3 x 3 square, usually within a shallow open-topped wooden box sitting on a table-top. The wooden ball (about the size of a golf ball) hangs from a string or chain attached to the top of a vertical wooden post rising from one corner of the box. The aim of the game is to knock down the skittles by swinging the ball in an arc round the post (rather than aiming directly at the skittles). In the picturesque name, the 'devil' refers to the ball and the 'tailors' are the skittles.

Ringing the bull

A game which involves swinging a bull's nose-ring, which is attached to a string, in an arc so as to hook it onto a bull's horn or hook attached to the wall. It was adopted by the earlier settlers of the

Caribbean islands Almost all of the Caribbean islands are in the Caribbean Sea, with only a few in inland lakes. The largest island is Cuba. Other sizable islands include Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago. Some of the smaller islands are ref ...

, where it is also referred to as the Bimini Ring Game. The game is still played in ''

Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is a Grade II listed public house in Nottingham which claims to have been established in 1189, although there is no documentation to verify this date. The building rests against Castle Rock, upon which Nottingham Ca ...

'', in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robin ...

, which claims to be Britain's oldest pub.

Quoits

A game which involves the throwing of metal, rope or rubber rings over a set distance, usually to land over or near a spike. The sport encompasses several distinct variations which are played either indoors on a small elevated table, or outside on a marked strip.

Dice games

Bar dice is a simple game played with five dice and a cup, often played to determine who buys the next round of drinks.

Card games

Numerous card games have been traditionally played in pubs. Those still popular to the present day include

and

poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game wa ...

Cue and ball games

Pool

Pool is played on a

billiard table A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table on which cue sports are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables (whether for carom billiards, pool, pyramid or snooker) provide a flat surface usually made of quarried slate, that ...

with six

pockets A pocket is a bag- or envelope-like receptacle either fastened to or inserted in an article of clothing to hold small items. Pockets are also attached to luggage, backpacks, and similar items. In older usage, a pocket was a separate small bag ...

into which balls are deposited in a specified order. The game encompasses distinct variants, including

eight-ball Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls (a ...

nine-ball Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle of ...

, and several others.

Bar billiards

The game, in its current form, started in the UK in the 1930s. The tables were made by the Jelkes company of Holloway Road in London, and sold to many pubs. Today, it mostly played in southern England and

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the la ...

on a special table without side and corner pockets, but with 9 scoring holes in the playing surface. On the playfield are normally placed three skittles--guarding the highest scoring holes (the two 50 point holes and the 200 point hole). The aim of the game is to score as many points as possible by potting balls down the holes before either the time runs out or a skittle is knocked over. The last ball can only be potted by getting it into the 100 or 200 point hole after bouncing off one cushion.

Bat and ball games

Coin pushing/throwing games

Pitch penny

A game which involves throwing coins across the room and into a hole carved in the seat of a wooden bench.

Shove ha'penny (or "shove halfpenny")

Played by two players on a small, smooth board, made of slate or wood. A number of parallel lines or grooves run horizontally across this board. Ha'pennies or similarly-sized coins or metal discs are placed at one end of the board and are shoved with a quick flick of the hand. The object is to shove the

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to ...

s so that a certain number of them (normally five) lie between the lines. The two players take alternate turns. In addition to shoving his own coin directly between the lines, a player may use his turn to knock his own coins into position. One set of coins is used by both players.

Toad in the hole

Involves the throwing of brass discs, called Toads, at a hole in a lead-topped table. A variation of this game has been played in pubs in East Sussex, UK, the 'hole' being in the centre of the lead surface.

Drinking games

Other games

* Bagatelle *

Bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

* Skittles *

Table shuffleboard Table shuffleboard (also known as American shuffleboard, indoor shuffleboard, slingers, shufflepuck, and quoits, sandy table) is a game in which players push metal-and-plastic weighted Puck (sports), pucks (also called ''weights'' or ''quoits' ...

Table football Table football, also known as foosball, table soccer, futbolito in Mexico, Taca Taca in Chile and Metegol in Argentina is a table-top game that is loosely based on association football. The aim of the game is to move the ball into the oppone ...

References

* * *

External links

Online guide to traditional games

Hickok Sports History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pub Games *