Ok, admit it, you can't help but smirk when you hear the word 'Cornhole', even its describing a harmless backyard game. If you are a resident of Illinois, Kentucky, or South Carolina, you have seen this game being played all over the place during the spring, summer, and fall. The game is known in other areas of the country as baggo, bean bag toss, or just bags. Whatever you call the cornhole game, most people that play immediately become hooked and with good reason. It doesn't matter if you are old or young, fat or skinny, or male or female, anyone can play and excel at the simple game. Not only that, you can still hold a conversation while you are playing.

The history of the game is somewhat unknown, but it is widely circulated that it was started by farmers in Ohio. In talking with people, it seems that most remember playing the game (or a variation) when they were younger. The object of the game is simple. Setup two cornhole boards 27 feet away from one another, and have two opponents alternate throwing cornhole bags at the opposing platform. As the players alternate, they keep throwing until each of their 4 bags is thrown. The scoring is pretty simple, a bag that's thrown in the hole is worth 3 points and the ones lying on the board are worth 1. You tally all the points on the board and the team with the most points gets to add the difference to their score.

You can opt to purchase the boxes over the internet or you can pull out your lumber, hammer, and nails and make the boxes on your own. Regulation boards are 4 feet x 2 feet and are made with 1/2"-3/4" plywood. The hole is a 6" circle cut at the top of the board. A lot of companies will offer portable cornhole boards that fold up for easier travel. In areas such as Illinois, the smaller boards are much more common for everyday play. As you probably guessed, a smaller target makes for harder game play. But, you do gain something with the more difficult playing conditions, these boards are much easier to put away in the back of your car for easy travel from tournament to tournament. The bags measure 6"x6" and are made with duck cloth and filled with 1 pound of feed corn.

Since the sport has really started to take off, large tournaments are being hosted every year with more and more being added season after season. In Ohio, the largest cornhole tournament was even televised and had thousands of entries from people wanting to showcase their dominance. The tourneys were really the best way for these players to see how they matched up. Most serious players have never had a chance to assess their level since they were stuck playing backyard games on their homemade cornhole sets. The tourneys are the perfect way to assess your skill level against other area players to see how you stack up.

Product developers have come to the rescue and met the desires of the fast growing sport. Ask any avid player and they can tell you that there are two problems with corn filled bags, they can't get wet and they are prone to critter invasions. Thankfully, a company has identified this as a problem and developed the weather resistant cornhole bags which contain plastic as opposed to corn filing. Other product developers have introduced scoring systems so you don't get into fights with your friends trying to keep score. Even though you see more and more people playing the game, the main draw seems to be the easy going nature and relaxing pace of the game. In a high tech world, the game of cornhole is very low tech. There isn't quite as enjoyable as playing bags on a summer evening with friends, perhaps that's why the game is so popular.