Tailgate cornhole play can be the same as standard cornhole play or be a bit different — it just depends on your personal preference. I’ll explain the standard cornhole rules and also how tailgate cornhole and backyard cornhole can differ. I’ll also show some options for different cornhole boards made just for tailgating.
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Cornhole court for tailgating and back yards
A standard cornhole court is 45 feet by 12 feet and it looks like the diagram below. You’ll notice that the cornhole boards are 27 feet apart from each other, measured from edge to edge. For juniors, they should be 21 feet away from the edge of the cornhole board.
When playing in the backyard, driveway, or out at tailgates, it’s not always practical to have this much space available to you. In those cases, you can put the cornhole boards at 24 feet apart from each other.
And you don’t really need a pitchers box that’s three feet wide. You’ll be just fine standing near the cornhole board as long as you don’t step in front of it (where the foul line is).
Cornhole board dimensions for tailgating
Here’s what the dimensions for a full sized cornhole board look like. They should be two feet by four feet with a hole 6 inches in diameter. The hole should be centered in the middle of the board and the center of the hole should be 9 inches from the end.
Many cornhole boards are made with 3/4″ thick playing platforms and then come with supporting beams (usually 2x4s) beneath the board that are connected to the frame. This means that some cornhole boards are quite heavy and bulky and since you have to carry around two at all times, this means twice the load and bulk.
When you’re storing and carrying around your cornhole boards to parties and tailgates you may not want to be carrying out bulky, heavy logs of wood. You also might not have room to store and transport two heavy full-sized cornhole boards in your vehicle or in your luggage.
For that reason, you’ll want to go with a tailgate cornhole board.
Tailgate cornhole boards
Tailgate cornhole boards are the same width as the standard cornhole board at two feet. However, their length is usually shortened to 3 feet. This makes them much lighter and compact and easier to bring around to events.
You can check the price on Amazon of one of these cornhole boards here.
Having these smaller boards is why it also makes sense to play with a shorter 24 foot distance. Although the cornhole size is usually the same at 6 inches in diameter, playing with a smaller board is more difficult for many people as it leads to more fouls.
Foldable or collapsable cornhole board
One other great solution for this is to go with a foldable or collapsable cornhole board. These are boards that can essentially fold up into a convenient suit case. They also come with carrying cases which make bringing these cornhole boards around to parties or tailgates much more convenient.
Some cornhole boards even fold up in the middle of the board. So you end up with two full size cornhole boards folded down in half inside two carrying cases. You can see what I’m talking about in the image below.
Tailgate cornhole bags
For the most part, I would stick with the standard 6″ by 6″ sized cornhole bags. There are some options out there for smaller sized cornhole bags and I’ve played with people who use them. They do fit better on the smaller cornhole boards but I’d still just go with the standard 6″ by 6″ sized cornhole bags.
And while I prefer the real corn filled bags versus the plastic resin pellets, you need to consider which bean bag filling is better for you.
If you’re going to be constantly playing outdoors and in humid or wet environments, then you are going to need to take extra care of real corn filled bean bags because they can start to attract mold and even little critters. If you can’t commit to keeping your cornhole bags clean and dry then you might want to just go with the weatherproof bags which would often be bags filled plastic resin pellets.
Tailgate cornhole rules 
You’ll likely not be adhering to some of the ACO rules like the time requirements you have to toss your bag but you probably want to follow along the main rules.
Each player gets 4 bags. In one on one play, each player remains in one lane at opposite ends from each other. Player A will toss four bags to the opposite cornhole board. Then Player B will toss four bags to the opposite cornhole board.
The score is then tallied and then the players stay in their lane but switch sides so that they’ll be tossing to the opposite side. You can also play 2 on 2 where you follow along the same rules except that the players stay in their position.
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How the scoring works
Scoring for tailgate cornhole is pretty much the same as standard cornhole.
- Cornholes are worth 3 points and you score a cornhole whenever your bean bag makes it through the hole in the cornhole board.
- Woodies are worth 1 point and are those bags that remain set on the cornhole board (also called playing surface).
- Foul bags are worth zero points and are those bags that aren’t cornholes and aren’t woodies.
Most people play the cancellation method where they cancel out each score.
So for example, let’s say a frame goes like this:
- TEAM A scores 2 cornholes and 1 woody so they get 7 points.
- TEAM B scores 3 cornholes and 2 woodies so they get 11 points.
In that case, you subtract the lower score from the higher score so that at the end of the frame, TEAM B has 4 points (11 minus 7) and TEAM A has 0 points.
You then play until someone reaches 21 but there are multiple ways to score and play cornhole.
You can read more about cornhole scoring here.
Drinking games
If you’re playing in the backyard and especially at tailgates you should know about all of the different drinking games that you can play with cornhole.
I like the game where players are forced to chug when they go over a certain amount of fouls or when an opposing player stays under a certain amount of fouls.
But there a lot of different cornhole drinking games you can play and you can read about these here.
Final word on Tailgate Cornhole & Backyard Cornhole
Tailgate cornhole and backyard cornhole are a lot of fun. The rules are mostly the same but due to space restrictions, there can be some differences in the distance between the boards and the size of the boards. For many people, going with weatherproof bags is also a good idea since you may not always want to take the extra time to keep your bags in clean and dry conditions.
Cover photo by Paul Fisher