Categories

Land a dart on Categories and someone in the room gets to set the topic. Could be cheeses, could be Bond actors, could be "things you'd regret texting an ex." Then you go round the circle, one answer each, no repeats. First person to hesitate, blank, or say something that's already been said takes the drink.

It always starts fast. Two laps in, everyone's still sharp. Then the category thins out, the pauses get longer, and someone claims "Boursin" counts as a different cheese to "Camembert" because it's a spread. That's the actual game — not the naming, the arguing about whether the naming was fair. Whoever picked the category usually gets blamed either way, for going too niche or too easy.

The move is to pick something you'd win at without making everyone else look daft for not knowing it — your job, your five-a-side league, your questionable Netflix history. And settle the repeats rule before the first answer, not after someone's three drinks in and convinced "IPA" and "lager" are the same thing.

Categories sits in the 2nd Circle, one of the board's three big outer rings with twenty wedges apiece, so it's not a rare hit — expect it more than once a session. It keeps company there with 21, the board's other list-and-count forfeit, so a night can easily land both back to back. Handy to have a go-to category in your back pocket before that happens.