Tips and tricks for becoming a cornhole champion

The SweetWater 420 Fest is THIS WEEKEND, which means it's time for Gas South's Annual Charity Cornhole Tournament. This year, we partnered with Cornhole Atlanta to host mini tournaments all around town and the ultimate showdown between the winners begins tomorrow at the festival. The champions will receive a VIP Party at SweetWater Brewery. Then, our Charity Cornhole Tournament begins on Sunday and over twenty nonprofits will be competing for $15,000! The money will be raised through the open cornhole tournaments and these funds will be matched by donations from Gas South and SweetWater.

To get everyone ready for this year's showdown, we've compiled the ultimate list of rules and regulations of cornhole.

We’ll start with the game setup:

• Make sure you’re playing on a nice flat surface with two league-approved boards. Bonus points for homemade sets!
• Boards should be two feet wide and four feet long, with a six-inch hole centered nine inches from the top. Each board should be angled with the top edge of the playing surface 12 inches above the ground, and the bottom edge propped three to four inches above the ground.
• Place the boards directly facing each other, 27 to 33 feet apart.
• Each game requires eight bean bags that weigh 15 to 16 ounces and measure roughly six inches wide.
• Cornhole can be played with two or four players. In a four-player game, your partner’s pitching box will be directly across from you. In a two-player game, if you start throwing from the left side of the board, you’ll walk directly across to the other board, and throw back from the right side.

Now that you’ve got your game set up, it’s time for some action!

• Decide who goes first. Use a coin flip to decide who tosses the first bag.
• Next, you let your opponent toss his bag. After he successfully tosses his bag, you toss yours, and well, y’all get the point.
• Your feet should never pass the front edge of your cornhole board. If you step in front of the board, you get a foul. Foul punishments vary from game to game, so don’t cross that line!
• Make sure a tossed bag never touches the ground. If it hits the ground and bounces up on the board, remove it before any other bags are thrown. If it’s hanging off the board and touching the ground, remove that as well. When all eight bags have been tossed to the other side, add up the score.
• Once all the bags are tossed, tally up the score and do your victory dance!

How you get to the victory dance:

• After all bags have been thrown, a bag remaining on the board is worth one point.
• A bag that went in the hole is worth three points.
• Add up how many points you earned and compare them to your opponents. Equal points cancel each other out so that only one team can score per round. For example, if you scored five points and your opponent scored three, you will add two points to your overall score and your team will throw first in the next round.
• If you and your opponent both scored six points, there will be no points awarded.
• A game is won when a team reaches 21 points with a lead of at least two points. The first team to win two games wins the match.

Cornhole Vocabulary:

• Woody, Boarder: A bag that ends up on the board.
• Cornhole, Holer, Corn in the Hole: A bag that ends up in the hole.
• Dos Cornholes: Throwing two bags in the hole.
• Holy Moly Triple Cornholy: Throwing three bags in the hole.
• The Great Cornholio: A person that throws 4 bags in the hole. All present are required to bow down in reverence to this cornholer.
• Get that corn outta my face!: A term used whenever you successfully counteract your opponent’s attempt to score. For example, when you put a bag in the hole immediately after your opponent does or when you successfully knock your opponent’s bag off the board.
• Corn on The Cob: When a player puts every bag on the board.
• Nothin’ but Corn: When a bag is tossed right through the hole without touching the board.

Now that you’ve brushed up on your cornhole lingo, grab a six pack of SweetWater and join us for a great time!