Cornhole (also known regionally as sack toss, or bags) is a lawn game popular in North America in which players or teams take turns throwing fabric bean bags at a raised, angled board with a hole in its far end. The goal of the game is to score points by either landing a bag on the board (one point) or putting a bag through the hole (three points).
History
The game was first described in Heyliger de Windt's 1883 patent for "Parlor Quoits", which displays most of the features of modern cornhole, but uses a square hole. Quoits is a game similar to horseshoes, played by throwing steel rings at a metal spike. Several earlier "parlor quoits" patents had sought to recreate quoit gameplay in an indoor environment, but De Windt's was the first to use bean bags and a slanted board with a hole as the target.
He sold the rights to the game to a Massachusetts toy manufacturer which marketed a version of it under the name "Faba Baga". Unlike modern cornhole, which has one hole and one size of bags, a Faba Baga board had two different-sized holes, worth different point values, and provided each player with one extra-large bag per round, which could score double points.
In September 1974, Popular Mechanics magazine published an article written by Carolyn Farrell about a similar game called "bean-bag bull's-eye." Bean-bag bull's-eye was played on a board the same width of modern cornhole boards (24"), but only 36" long as opposed to the 48" length used in cornhole. The hole was the same diameter (6") but was centered 8" (rather than 9") from the back of the board. Each player threw two bags, weighing eight ounces each, "in succession". The boards in bean-bag bull's-eye were placed "about 30 ft. apart for adults, 10 ft. for kids." Scoring was essentially the same as that used in cornhole (three points for a bag in the hole, one point for a bag remaining on the board) and also used cancellation scoring.
In the Chicago area, a similar game is referred to as "bags", but uses rectangular bags. The game spread in Chicago, Illinois, and the Northwest region of Indiana in the late 1970s and early 1980s, perhaps due to the Popular Mechanics article mentioned above. Cornhole as it is now known originated and gained popularity on Cincinnati's west side (near Ferguson Avenue) in the 1980s and spread to surrounding areas in Kentucky and Southeast Indiana.
Tournaments
The American Cornhole League (ACL) was founded in 2015 by Stacey Moore. According to the ACL's website, it promotes and develops cornhole as a sport on every level, and created software and apps to manage cornhole leagues, tournaments, special events, and player development.
The American Cornhole Organization (ACO) was established in 2005 by Frank Geers and is headquartered in Milford, Ohio. As of August 1, 2019, the ACO claimed on its website to be the "governing body for the sport of cornhole".
The American Cornhole Association (ACA) is an organization whose sole mission is to help cornhole players enjoy the game of cornhole. According to its website, "[o]ne of the most important ways to achieve this goal is for people to have high-quality equipment to play on." Accordingly, the ACA is largely focused on selling cornhole-related products and equipment rather than acting as a sanctioning body of the sport; however, it does have its own rules and does sponsor events.
Rules and format
Equipment and court layout
Cornhole matches are played with two sets of four bags (eight total), two boards and two, four, or eight players.
There are four bags to a set. Each set of bags should be distinguishable from the other, usually by using different colors. The American Cornhole League's rules call for double-seamed fabric bags measuring and weighing . Although bags used to be filled with preserved corn kernels (hence "cornhole") or dried beans, bags are now usually filled with plastic resin or other materials that will maintain a consistent weight and shape over many throws without deforming. Bags are usually dual-sided, with each side of the bag being a different material that can affect grip and react faster or slower on the board's surface. Faster bags are often preferred in humid conditions when bags will not slide as readily. Additionally, professional players may opt for different materials depending on their personal throwing styles. Players with a lower, faster throw may use more rotation and prefer a slower bag material, whereas players with higher, slower throws may use less rotation and prefer a more reactive bag.