I know it's been a while (unless you've been reading all the crap I post on the Forums, on the grounds that I still have plenty of sizzling wrestling insight, but there's just hardly ever any real important news/developments outside of PPVs that make it seem worth firing up a full column, so I just post it all, piece-meal, on the Forums). For that, I apologize.
 

It all started with our crew somewhere towards the beginning of the Attitude Era. And after a few years of keeping it a private matter among friends, I shared the rules with the world, and our Rumble Game has become a mild international phenomenon.

C'mon, admit it: NOTHING is more fun that playing The Game so that you actually have a reason to cheer/boo/care-about EVERY SINGLE ENTRY into the Rumble. You can mock your friends when they draw Husky Harris! And you'll have no choice but to grab the nearest damn bottle and give yourself Instant Liver Damage when you draw Chris F. Masters! 

No more sitting around, only perking up when somebody like Big Show or John Cena enters the match. Those jokers get enough of the attention as it is. Playing the Rumble Game spreads the excitement out over the entire hour. Nothing says "Sunday Night Funhouse" like caring So Damned Much that you actually jump around like a monkey, cheering on some worthless choade like Zack Ryder, in the hopes that he goes nuts and pulls a Diesel '94 out of his ass, somehow! Trust me, just play it: you'll have fun.

Long time readers should be relatively well-aware of the Royal Rumble Game and its rules. They should pay attention, however, as there have been mild changes this year to account for the expansion to a 40-man field. For the edification of the initiated and the uninitiated alike, here's how it goes: 

(1) Count how many people are in your group
 
(2) Rummage around and come up with pieces/scraps of paper equal in number to the number of folks in your group
 
(3) Put a number on each piece of paper (starting with 1, and proceeding up until you hit the number of people in your group). EXAMPLE: if you have 5 people, you should have 5 pieces of paper, number 1 through 5.
 
(4) Put the pieces of paper in a hat (or baggie or box or whatever; though a University of Dayton baseball-style cap IS the traditionally appropriate vessel), and shake/jiggle/mix adequately
 
(5) Each person draws his/her number out of the hat-like object; your will be assigned wrestlers, in a rotating fashion, based on this number. For instance, if you draw #3 in a five-person game, you will get entries 3, 8, 13, 18, 23, 28, 33, and 38. If you are #1 in a three person game, you get 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34, 37, and 40. You get the idea, right? 
 
(6) Sit on the edge of your seat and start murmuring every time one of your wrestlers is about to enter; hope for the best, but prepare for Hornswoggle! React accordingly, and preferably profanely
 
(7) You accumulate points thusly: 

- one point (1) for every solo elimination made by your wrestlers... 
- one-half point (0.5) for every tandem/group elimination aided by your wrestlers (yes, if eight men team up to get Kane, they each get 0.5 points, even though that adds up to 4.0 points instead of 1.0; this is a game, people, not quantum mechanics!).... 
- FOUR points (4) for each wrestler you have that makes it to the Final Five of the Rumble (yes, final FIVE; the final FOUR are usually all bigger stars, but this opens things up for one last surprise guy to net you a bonus, plus it helps level the point distribution between "elim points" and "survival points")...
- an additional EIGHT points (8) if your wrestler is the runner-up.... 
- TWELVE big points (12) if your wrestler is the winner of the Rumble. 

NOTE: the bolded parts represent rule changes for 2011. With the available elimination points increasing by 33%, it is only fair to increase the number of endurance/survival points accordingly. With these new figures, there will be 40 points awarded for eliminations, and 40 points awarded for lasting long enough to play a vital role in the dramatic Rumble End Game. If WWE returns to a 30 man field, we will return to our old points system, but till then, this strikes me as a very fair way to deal with WWE's move.
 
If the scoring seems overly-simple, take my word for it: it's time tested. For one, true fans will be drinking their faces off for the annual spectacle that is the Rumble, so simple math is the best math. For two, it's actually quite an elegant set-up, with around 40 points determined by eliminations and spread out evenly, but 40 bonus points "back-loaded" and concentrated into the Final Five. This invariably means that several people will be vying for the point lead during End Game, which makes it all the more exciting.

Oh, and for the sake of full disclosure: the game is fair and "even" with 4, 5, 8, or 10 players (or with 2 or with 20, but I don't see many folks throwing a 2-person party or squeezing 20 people onto a couch)... meaning that everybody gets the same number of wrestlers with those numbers of players. In cases of uneven games where some players will get one less wrestler than others, it is permissible to give the handicapped players a "head start." We've settled on giving the handicapped player(s) 2 points to make up for being one wrestler short. Feel free to do the same, should the situation arise in your unique gaming situation.

Also, the most recent rule amendment we've made was this: it is now legal for a player with an "extra" wrestler in an Unfair Game to TRADE his last wrestler (ONLY his last wrestler, since then he's taking a huge risk of it being a Final Five Wrestler, and really has to ponder whether it's worth it or not) to one of the handicapped players in exchange for the guaranteed 2 points, if he can find a willing partner.
 
According to our rules, this transaction must be agreed upon before the Rumble Match starts, though you're certainly free to tweak that particular regulation if you think it'd be fun to have heated in-match negotiations as two guys are keeping track of what wrestlers are still "on the board" (basically, the Rumble Game equivalent of Card Counting in blackjack).