What is a Cornhole Tournament
This is a good first question to answer. A cornhole tournament is the ultimate way to determine who the best cornhole player is of a particular group. There are several different reasons you would have a tournament, but the premise of a tournament is like any other type of tournament. You start with a group of teams or single players and the winner of the tourney is considered the best of that day. You can take this further and start a league where a series of tournaments determine who the best player is through several different contests, much like golf or basketball.
So you want to get serious about your cornhole game? Maybe you just smoke all the competition around and you think you might have what it takes to compete with the pros. A cornhole tournament might be your answer. There are a couple of different organizations that put on cornhole tournaments that you can qualify for if you’re good enough. The American Cornhole Association or the American Cornhole League has information about these on their websites if you want to give it a shot.
Maybe there’s been a debate over who is the best in your family or you want to have a charity benefit for a special cause. A cornhole tournament is also a great answer for either of those. The only thing you have to figure out is what it takes to run the tournament. If you have enough participation, anyone can have a cornhole tournament. We’ll go over everything you need to know right here.
How to Run a Cornhole Tournament
Running a cornhole tournament is not too complicated. It works similar to many other sports, you just need to make sure you have plenty of equipment, you know the rules to keep some order to your tournament, and decide what type of structure you are going to use.
The number of cornhole boards you have should match the total number of matches that will be played during the cornhole tourney. You should also have 8 bags for each set of cornhole boards you need. So, if you have eight teams, you will need 4 sets of boards to make sure no one is standing around waiting too long. As the person running the tournament, you should know the rules and explain them to the participants, keep track of the tournament bracket, and be ready to make any officiating calls that might arise. We’ll start with the rules.
Cornhole Tournament Rules
You should first get familiar with the basic rules of cornhole if you’re not already. You can check out those basic rules of gameplay here. All of these rules will apply to a tournament as well, but there are some extra regulations you should understand specifically for tournaments to make sure it runs as smooth as possible.
Things such as lane assignment and first throw will be determined based on the type of tournament you are running. If it is a seeded tournament, the team with the higher seed has their choice of bag color and first throw. The lane assignment and opponent choice is determined based on which team has the higher seed. The higher seeded team can choose which lane they want or who they want to pitch against. The remaining option will be the lower seeded team’s choice.
If it is a randomly seeded tournament, the team winning the coin toss (or some other random method) will choose their bag color and who throws first. Another coin toss will determine the lane assignment and who their opponent will be. Like with seeded tournaments, the remaining option will be chosen by the team that lost the coin toss.
Specific in Game Tournament Rules
There are some additional specific game rules that should be understood as well outside of the normal gameplay rules.
In case of accidental release of the bag once the final swing has been initiated the throw will count as a toss. If the player drops the bag accidentally before starting the swing, then the bag can be picked up and thrown without penalty.
If a player throws out of turn at any point during a frame, that will be considered a foul bag and removed from the playing surface. If it affects bags that are already present, then the opponent will have the option of leaving them as they are or resetting them back to their original position prior to the throw of the out of turn bag. Once the bag is cleared and the reset is complete, the opponent will have to throw 2 bags in a row for the sequence to be corrected.
If a player touches a bag before the frame is complete, the frame is over and the offending player will not be able to throw anymore bags. The non-offending team will have an automatic 12 points to be considered during that frame and scoring should take place as normal.
Players will also have 15 seconds to throw their bag once the opponent’s bag has come to rest and frames should be scored within 5 seconds of the final bag coming to rest. For bags that have moved outside of those 5 seconds, the previous position should be used as the official score for the frame.
Players/teams will be allowed two 1-minute timeouts per game and these can only be called when it is that player’s turn. During a timeout, players can walk to the other board to determine bag position and strategy. Bags should not be touched during this time.
Boards can be straightened between frames as long as there is agreement with the other team or player.
Cornhole Tournament Structure
There are a few different ways that a cornhole tournament can be structured. The examples below are common tournament structures that you see in many different sports. The choice should be made based on your specific situation. Some are more friendly to time constraints while others are organized to provide teams or players with more opportunity to showcase their skills by having more games. We’ll go over the basic formats so you can choose which is the best for you.
Single Elimination Tournament
A single elimination tournament will be the quickest format that you can use when structuring your cornhole tournament. You can think of your typical championship tournament bracket as the format you would use for this style of tournament.
Matches are usually determined by a coin toss, you can use another random method if you would like. It is your standard bracket where the winning team advances until a final team is left standing. What makes this style of tournament attractive is that it is quick and easy. For informal tournaments with family or friends, this can be a good way to have a tourney without having to spend the entire day on your event.
Double Elimination Tournament
A double elimination tournament is similar to the single elimination tournament, but each team will have to lose twice to be eliminated from the tournament. If there is not any type of seeding that has taken place prior to the tournament, then it will be up to the tournament organizer to decide which teams will play each other to start the tournament. This can be done randomly by flipping a coin or drawing numbers.
The most common way to track the results of this tournament is to have a winner’s bracket and a loser’s bracket. If a team loses they are moved into the loser’s bracket, winning teams advance on in the winner’s bracket. Because it is a double elimination tournament, a winning team that has not lost must be beat twice by the winner of the losing bracket for the losing bracket team to be crowned as champion. You can click the button below to find a tournament bracket for either of these formats.
Round Robin Tournament
A round robin format is simply a tournament where each team will play each other at least once. You can change the structure to have teams play each other as many times as you want to determine what team is the best. The team that has the most wins will be crowned the winner of the tournament. If there happens to be a tie, then the team with the highest point differential would be ranked higher.
Round Robin with Championship Bracket
If you are having an official tournament and you have plenty of boards available to keep the tournament moving along this is probably the best type of tournament to host. It is a combination of a round robin tournament for seeding purposes and then a single elimination tournament to determine a winner.
You would use the round robin style to make sure that all teams play each other once. The team with the most wins will be the #1 seed, the team with the second most wins will be #2 seed, and so on. If there is a tie with wins, then you should track the point differential between the games. The team with the highest point differential will get the #1 seed.
After the conclusion of the round robin round, the teams will be put into a single elimination bracket where the best team plays against the worst team, the second-best team plays against the second-worst team, and so on. If a team loses, then they are eliminated from the tournament. The last team standing would be crowned the winner and have a story to tell their granchildren about how they were once cornhole champions.
Need boards for your cornhole tournament? Here is a guide to finding the best cornhole boards for your event.