Cornhole Rules
Number of Players
Game Court
Frame play
Points and Scoring: The game is played to 21 points.
Point Cancellation
Toss Rotation: The player of the team who scored in the Frame tosses first to start the next Frame.
- Doubles: 2 players per team
- Singles: 2 opposing players
Game Court
- The boards are placed 27 feet apart, front-to-front.
- The fronts of both boards serve as foul lines. Players will toss from behind their foul line.
- One member of each team plays on each end of the court, one player on each side of the board.
- In Doubles, players stand directly across from each other…no crisscross.
- Players/Teams will stay in their lane the entire match. Players cannot “share” the same tossing area. (See reverse for court layout)
Frame play
- To start play, a coin-toss, rock/paper/scissors or some other mutually agreed upon method decides who has which bags, who chooses sides and who tosses first.
- After the first bag is tossed, the opposing players on the same end of the court alternate tosses until both opposing players have alternately tossed all 4 of their bags.
- When both (opposing) players on one end of the court have alternately tossed their bags, scores are tallied using cancellation scoring. This completes a Frame.
Points and Scoring: The game is played to 21 points.
- You do not have to score “21” exactly.
- You do not have to win by 2.
- In-the-Hole: 3 points. A bag is considered In-the-Hole if:
- It is thrown directly into the hole ("a ringer")
- It strikes the board surface and slides into the hole.
- It lands on the board and then is knocked in the hole by any other subsequent bag.
- On-the-Board: 1 point. A bag is considered On-the-Board if it comes to rest on the board surface without first touching the ground. A bag that touches the ground before coming to rest on the board surface is considered a dead bag and should be removed from the board surface before the next bag is thrown.
- Out-of-Play: 0 points. A bag is Out of Play if it is neither In the Hole nor On the Board. A bag may be knocked Out of Play by any subsequently thrown bag.
Point Cancellation
- Only the point difference in each Frame is added to the game score.
- Example: After a player from Team A and B have alternated tossing all 4 of their bags, you add their points. If the player from Team A has 2 in the hole, 1 on the board and 1 off the board = 7 points. If the player from Team B has 1 in the hole, 2 on the board and 1 off the board = 5 points. Only Team A would score 2 game points.
- Only 1 team/player can score in a single Frame.
Toss Rotation: The player of the team who scored in the Frame tosses first to start the next Frame.
