House Rules

I am having trouble deciding what to make my official house rules. Having moved from California to DC, I have now been subject to many different beer pong rules. Most rules overlap, especially the following:

• Bouncing it into the cup counts for two cups. 
• You must be heard calling "heating up" and "on fire." Being "on fire" means making three cups in consecutive turns, and once you are on fire, you get to shoot till you miss. 
• If you do not make any shots during the game, you must sit underneath the table for the duration of the next game (known as trollin', the namesake of this blog). 
• Game play begins with eye-to-eye, and from that point on the winning teams from the last round starts each game. 
• If both people from one team make it during the same turn, they get balls back. 
• Islands must be called, and if you make it an additional cup must be pulled. 
• You  must be far enough back from the table that your elbow does not pass over the table while shooting.

Certain rules are pretty easily defined by household, such as how many re-racks and whether or not gentleman's (lining up the final two cups and centering the final cup) is allowed. How many islands per person and the consequence for making a non-island cup after calling island also vary widely by household. 

There are, however, some rules that I take major issue with, and would never allow in any house of mine. For example, if the person who shoots the ball picks it up off of the table a after missing a cup without it hitting the floor, they are allowed to re-shoot. On the east coast, for whatever reason, boys have to shoot behind their back and girls can shoot with their left hand. I personally think this is ridiculous. What about being a girl preempts you from a behind-the-back shot? Where I come from in California, it is a behind-the-back shot for everyone. 

The rule that I take major issue with is somewhat related to death cup. Here in DC, cups are pulled from the table immediately if they are made. If you leave any sort of cup on the table that has already been made, be it in the rack or on the edge, and someone makes it, it is a "death cup" that ends the game. In my hometown (and mind you, that means it likely does not apply to the whole of the west coast), cups are pulled at the end of every turn, and two balls made into the same cup counts for three cups pulled from the rack. This basically does away with any sort of death cup rule. I am usually in the minority with my advocacy of this rule, however, and I am not really sure where it came from. 

No matter your house rules, party on, my fellow pongers.