Every player in the group starts by placing their fingers on the rim of the cup.
Players take it in turns to count down “three, two, one …” At this point every player has two options: they can leave their finger on the cup or they can lift their finger off the cup.
For each player, the aim of the game is to guess how many people are going to leave their fingers on the cup when the countdown is finished. If you are playing with 5 people, the guesses could be zero, one, two, three, four or five. Zero if everyone (including yourself) takes their fingers off, or five if everyone leaves their fingers on. Or any combination in between.
If you think that four people will leave their fingers on the cup then the countdown would go, “three, two, one … FOUR!” Only one player makes a guess on each round, and it passes around the circle so that everyone has a turn. To start with you could count down slower until everyone has a turn and is comfortable with the format.
When you guess correctly, you are ‘out’ – which means you win! You then watch to see who will be in the last person to guess correctly. The suspense builds when you get to the final and players are trying to outwit each other.
Tips
You can create a leader board assigning points to who goes out first (and therefore wins) or you can introduce forfeits/dares/penalties for the last person remaining, depending on the group dynamics. Part of the game is to be able to predict what others might do – look for patterns in players’ behaviour. Do they leave on, then take off then leave on alternately?