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. I think most agree, no matter what you call the cornhole game, most players find themselves in love with the sport from the moment they start playing. Its a game that young and old can play, any shape or size, and something that's easy to do while you continue socializing with others at the party.

Where was the popular game started? Well, its tough to say but there are rumors that some farmers with a little spare time might have invented the game way back when. When most folks think of the game they recall playing a bean bag toss game or something similar when they were kids. The game is pretty simple to understand and play. Setup two cornhole boards 27 feet away from one another, and have two opponents alternate throwing cornhole bags at the board opposite of them. Each player throws four bags a piece (4 colors to one team and 4 to the other) until you've thrown all eight bags. A bag in the hole is worth 3 points and one on the board is worth 1. When the round is complete, you count up all the points of each team and the winning team takes the difference and adds them to their total score.

You can choose to attempt to build the platforms themselves or you can go the easy route and buy them at an ecommerce shop. 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 popular alternative to the regulation board is the cornhole boards that collapse for simple traveling. In areas such as Illinois, the smaller boards are much more common for everyday play. Because of the shorter surface and the steeper pitch, these boards are more difficult to play on. But, the big advantage to playing on these boards is that they can fit into your vehicle with ease and that makes for easy portability. The bags are pretty simple to make, they are filled with 14-16 ounces of feed corn and they measure 6 inches x 6 inches.

The sport has really developed in the past few years and now it is not uncommon to see tournaments year round in various parts of the country. 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. It has always been hard to see how good you really were when you're only playing with your neighbors on your homemade cornhole sets. The tournaments are the way to get stiffer competition together in one spot so the players can see where they stand.

Not surprisingly, companies have developed products to meet the needs of the 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 are filled with plastic pellets as opposed to corn. To make things easy on yourself and to save you from getting into unnecessary fights, some companies are developing some scoring systems that will help keep score for you. Although its growing fast, many folks are simply drawn to the game because of its simple concept and nature. There isn't quite as enjoyable as playing bags on a summer evening with friends, perhaps that's why the game is so popular.