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Just further to the guys that have mentioned the game with the nails. There's a pub on the Stratumseind in Eindhoven, Holland, called De Kram, where you can play it. It's called Spiker, and you drive 9 inch nails into a block of wood 18 inches in diameter.

The rules with the guys I played are, that the first one who's nail is fully in chooses the beer, then the second last person buys the beer and the last person buys the nails for the next game. You can't hammer your own nail and you just hit the nail with the normal end of the hammer.

Good way to have a bit of craic, and an odd sight to see when you walk into the pub for the first time!

Séan, Settlers of Catan would be a great game in a pub! <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D --> We play it every couple of weeks with neighbours and beers <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

Card games are popular in many pubs over here. Well, at least up in North Rhine-Westfalia. Skart, Doppelkopf and other games my lazy brain just can't comprehend, and you often see tables of locals noisily engaged. Looks great fun. In my wife's home town (only 20km away where we live now) my favourite bar is a bit of a kip (reminds me of my early drinking days in Charlies Bar and the depths of Bruxelles in the 90s). The rougher side of of the population, and people my wife went to school with, are still sitting in the same place. But, even that had chess, draughts, connect 4, darts and such.

Never saw the hammer and nails thing. I wouldn't introduce it to this village, as my neighbour, our carpenter, would probably manage to get a NIN in with one blow <!-- s:| --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_neutral.gif" alt="" title="Neutral" /><!-- s:| -->

Can't remember where but I saw on the telly a place in England that had rifle shooting competitions in the pubs! I think they had a pub league or something like that.
Could be health and safety concerns though.

Last time I was in Sweden I played a game called sjoelen. It's a bit like shuffleboard- you get three rounds to slide 30 disks into 4 different chutes which have different point values. Great fun when you have a couple of pints in you. And highly competitive.

How about in someones house everyone puts an empty bottle at their feet with a cap on top facing upwards and everyone throws other loose caps to try and knock a cap off a bottle. It's generally mindless enough that it doesn't impact on conversation and can give a slight sense of achievement and excitement if you succeed.

And you have shennanigans like this which really made me wonder about today's youth (and I'm not old):
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