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So you think you and your friends are good at flip cup. But are you good enough to compete in the World Series of Flip Cup?

Good enough to flip six cups in 11 seconds in front of a raucous crowd during the championship round? That’s what it took for the Washington, D.C.—based Two Finger Fanatics, the defending WSFC champions, to be crowned the best flippers in the land last year.

“Winning the title was a major adrenaline rush. We exploded in cheering and were jumping up and down and waving our giant trophy around,” said team member Alena Callaghan, 25, of Arlington, Va.

The WSFC, now in its third year, will start filling cups at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Recher Theatre in Towson. The tournament, benefitting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, draws competitors from Baltimore and Boston to Toronto and Texas with team names like the Erotic Photo Hunters, Team No Ma’am and Cirrhosis not Fibrosis. The eclectic mix of players ranges from college students to educators and engineers.

“We’ve got your average group of people who want to meet people and have a good time and people who view this as a real sporting event,” said Joe Hilseberg, the 31-year-old founder of the WSFC.

Hilseberg dabbled in flip cup — a high-paced, team-party game a bunch of people can play at once — as a student at University of Maryland, College Park, and his passion was rekindled after playing it at bars like Kisling’s Tavern with friends from the Baltimore Sports and Social Club. When they started to get pretty good at the game, Hilseberg wondered what the competition was like outside of Baltimore.

“There was no flip cup tournament to see if we were actually better than anyone else … so I decided to start one myself,” he said.

The WSFC debuted in 2006 with 16 teams. The open-invitation tournament field has grown to 44 this year. In a WSFC match, players from each team line up on opposite sides of a table with plastic cups filled with two ounces of their favorite beverage — usually beer — in front of them. When the round begins, the first player on each team chugs the contents of their cup, places it rightside up on the edge of the table and flips it with their fingers, attempting to get the cup to land upside down. Once this is accomplished, the next person does the same. The first team to successfully flip all six cups is the victor, and has bragging rights for the round.

“The weakest link usually slows down the team but it makes for a lot of fun,” said Tom Eberwein, 32, of White Marsh, a member of The Land of Misflipped Toys squad.

The WSFC starts in pool play, with the top teams from each pool advancing to a single-elimination 16-team bracket to determine a winner. Each match is a best-of-seven series. Prizes include a trophy, $500 and a custom WSFC table. The Two Finger Fanatics — the name is a nod to their preferred flip cup form — will be making the trip from D.C. to defend their title, and Callaghan expects them to repeat.

Might that be bulletin-board material for their competitors? In reality, most of the competitors, the WSFC is less about winning and more about having a good time and making new connections.

“There’s tons of drinking games, but flip cup is the one that is the most social. It gets rowdy, it’s fun and it livens up a party,” said Eberwein.

“It’s fun to meet people across the tables,” said Callaghan. “I actually met my boyfriend by flirting with him across the flip cup table.” Hilseberg even met his wife, Juanita, while playing flip cup. Who knew a simple party game could be so romantic?

Hilseberg also lost his cousin, Catherine Baughman — a flip cup fan — to cystic fibrosis,a chronic disease that causes life-threatening lung infections. in March 2006. He expects this year’s WSFC to raise $4,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

“The first World Series wasn’t for charity, but after my cousin passed away, I realized I could use the tournament to raise money for cystic fibrosis,” Hilsberg said. Colleen Clary Perzan, the 24-year-old owner of Floral Couture in Cockeysville, is one of 30,000 Americans living with the disease. The avid flipper decided to organize three teams for this year’s event (she’ll be competing on one of them).

“I thought it was so funny when I first heard about it,” she said. “Everyone shared in my humor that we would be raising money for CF by participating in drinking games. That just added to the fun.”

Matt Vensel is a content creator at b. Email him at matt@bthesite.com

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