Games to Play in Bars

Bars are much more than a place to get a pint of brew or a shot of whiskey. Most watering holes offer plenty of games to complement the good times you can have with friends there. Pool and darts are barroom staples, and there are several more options that can be found in many bars.

Pool

Any bar worth its weight in Budweiser has at least one pool table. Most are coin-operated, and you will pay 50 cents to $1 for a game. Some bars rent you the tables by the hour. The most popular pool games are 8-Ball and 9-Ball. A tip is to check for a warped stick before you begin playing. Roll a cue stick across the table and see if it wobbles.

Darts

Some bars have regular dartboards while others have the electronic kind with soft tips (the better to prevent any drunken dart-throwing incidents). The most popular forms of darts are 401 and cricket. In 401, you must lower your starting score of 401 to 0 first by hitting numbers on the board. In cricket, you try to hit each of the numbers 15 to 20 and the bull's-eye three times each before your opponent does.

Tabletop shuffleboard

This is a more recent phenomenon in pubs. The layout is similar to the shuffleboard you would play on pavement, but in this form of the game you slide pucks across a shuffleboard layout on a long table. The object of the game is to slide your puck into and knock your opponents' pucks out of the point-scoring spots on the opposite end of the board.

Card games

While you don't want to sit around a bar table with wads of cash in a high-stakes poker game, you can bring poker chips and cards and play a poker tournament for fun. Many bars offer their own poker tournaments where they give away cash or prizes to the winners as a way to get patrons in the doors. You can also play hearts, spades or any card game you enjoy.

Board games

Some bars have shelves of board games, or you can bring your own and play around a table. Top choices include Clue, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Outburst and more. Play in teams if you have more people present than the game allows.