Cornhole: My Favorite Summer Game

This hub is designed to give you the general idea behind my new favorite summer game – Cornhole. As I am immature and my sense of humor is that of a 14 year-old boy, the name sounds funny to me too. Get over it and give this game a try in your backyard while knocking back a few cold ones.  It's also a great tailgating product.

Throughout my first round of play I was kind of bored, but as I started to play longer I slowly became obsessed with this game and I can’t wait to play it again. It’s perfect for barbeques and pool parties if you have some extra outdoor space.

I’d like to thank my brother for inspiring this article. He went to college in the sticks of Pennsylvania where there isn’t much to do. Apparently, this was popular at parties. Had there been anything more exciting to do at his school, I would have never had the pleasure of playing this game recently.

As stated before, this is just the general idea, I suggest visiting http://www.playcornhole.org/rules.shtml for rules and regulations. This seemed to be the most comprehensive site.

Basic equipment/Cornhole Court (see diagrams above)

You will need:

• Two Cornholes which you can either purchase or build yourself (please see Amazon links below if you’d like to purchase online).
• 8 cornhole bags (they look like bean bags), 4 bags per team
• 4 people (traditionally)
• Space – the cornhole platforms are across from each other

Rules of the game (probably not official rules, but this is how my family plays it)/Scoring

• There are teams of two. Your teammate will stand across from you at the opposite end of the court, so your opponent plays the game next to you at your platform. The objective is for both teams to take turns trying to get to a score of 21 to win the game. Your ending score has to be exactly 21, you cannot be over 21.
• When you throw the cornhole bag the scoring is as follows:
• In the cornhole – 3pts
• On the platform – 1 pt
• Outside of the platform – o pts
• Each point cancels your opponents’ points
• For example, say you throw first. You will throw, then your opponent next to you will throw, and you will continue to take turns aiming for the platform across from you. If out of my 4 turns, I get one cornhole in the hole, I get 3 pts. But, my opponent got 1 cornhole on the platform. Therefore, his 1 pt is taken from my 3 points. I net 2 points. (If we had both gotten one cornhole bag in the cornhole, our scores would have been zero because my 3 pts would have cancelled out his/her 3 pts.)
• Shoot until one team gets exactly 21 points

It’s really just one of those games that you have to play a couple of times to get the hang of it and understand the rules.  Like most games, I’m sure there are stricter rules out there, but my family just went with the flow and modified some.  This game is really great for any age as long as someone can make the throwing distance. 

Give it a try!