Stop the Bus

How to run it

Everyone plays, the dealer included. Three rounds: the deal, the pyramid, then the bus.

ROUND ONE, THE DEAL

Three times round the table. Every card you are dealt you keep, face up in front of you.

1. Red or black? Wrong and you drink one.
2. Higher or lower than the card you already have? Wrong and you drink one.
3. Inside or outside the two you have? Wrong and you drink one — and if it lands on either of your cards exactly, two.

Everybody finishes the round with three cards.

ROUND TWO, THE PYRAMID

Build a face-down pyramid out of the rest of the deck. The more of you there are, the more rows it takes.

1. Flip the top card, row one. Anyone holding that number lays it down and hands out one drink for each card he lays.
2. Row two is two drinks a card, row three is three, and on down.
3. Split the drinks however you like — all on one man, or shared out.
4. It ends when the pyramid runs out, or when one man is left holding cards.
5. Most cards left is in the bus. Level on cards? Play round one at the pair of them until one drinks and the other does not.

ROUND THREE, THE BUS

Five cards face down in a row — more if you are feeling cruel, fewer if you are feeling kind.

1. Start at the back of the bus. Blind higher or lower on the first card.
2. Right and you move a seat towards the front. Wrong and you drink, and you go back to the back.
3. Five right in a row and you are off the bus. That is the only way off.
4. Every card turned over stays where it lies, so on a second run at a seat there is a stack. Call your higher or lower against whichever of that stack's outside cards you fancy — its highest or its lowest. That is the only mercy in this game.

Worth knowing

• Sips or water, never shots, and nobody has to drink at all.
• The dealer plays too. There is no safe seat at this table.
• Anybody who has had enough can hand the bus to a volunteer, and nobody thinks less of either of them.
• Somebody keep an eye on the pyramid rows. Six drinks a card at the bottom of a tall one is a lot of pyramid.

What you need

• A deck of cards

Add this to your event

Fayla builds the whole weekend around it — a scoreboard everybody can see, a shopping list that writes itself out of the things you picked, and one link for the group chat.

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