A Case of Beer - Suits - [a case of the summer]

Alright, folks.  I'm going to be out of commission from tomorrow morning (way earlier than I enjoy) until late Sunday afternoon.  I'm going to be camping in upstate New York and I'm leaving my cell phone turned off, in the car.  Aside from a radio (and the people I'm with NOT keeping their phones in the car), I'm going to be completely cut off from civilization.  It'll be nice.

Anyway, this game -- known as Suits -- was originally introduced to me when I was a life guard in high sch....when I was 21.  It's a potentially vicious game where you can make a lot of enemies.  Of course, it's not without its risks either, though.  Here's how it works.

Everybody sits around a table, and the dealer picks a suit.  The dealer then begins distributing the cards to each person until that suit appears.  The person who was dealt that suit has to drink that amount of seconds (2-10 is obvious, and then 11 seconds for Jack, 12 for Queen, 13 for King, and 14 for Ace).  However, here's the kicker:  The remaining players in the game count the amount of seconds.  So the person to your right says 1, then the person after that says 2, and so on and so forth.  But each person can wait as long as they'd like before saying the next number.  So, if you want to be a jerk, you can wait 10 seconds before saying "3."  That's where the enemy part comes in.  If you really screw somebody over, they'll likely get payback on you when your turn comes around.

So where's the risk, you ask?  Well, if the person finishes their beer before the other players stop counting, the person who was to say the next number then has to drink the full amount.  And remember -- the individual drinking doesn't necessarily have a full beer (and it's always preferable to play with cans, so that people can't actually see how much you have left), so you have to be conscious about how long you're taking and how fast they're drinking.  And if somebody says the wrong number while counting (believe it or not, this happens often), that person then has to drink.

There are other rules, like that you can't let put your beer on the table before picking the next suit, but I'd rather not further complicate this explanation.

This is a great game to play at the beginning of the night (or as a preparty game before going out) to really get everybody loosened up.