Table shuffleboard (also known as American shuffleboard, indoor shuffleboard, slingers, shufflepuck, and quoits, sandy table) is a game in which players push metal-and-plastic weighted
pucks (also called ''weights'' or ''quoits'') down a long and smooth
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
en table into a scoring area at the opposite end of the table. Shooting is performed with the hand directly, as opposed to
deck shuffleboard's use of
cue sticks
A cue stick (or simply cue, more specifically billiards cue, pool cue, or snooker cue) is an item of sporting equipment essential to the games of pool, snooker and carom billiards. It is used to strike a ball, usually the . Cues are tapered stic ...
.
Tables
![Shuffleboard](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Shuffleboard.jpg)
Shuffleboard tables vary in length, usually within a , and are at least wide. Tables are intended to be kept flat, but any given table may have its own slight concave or convex condition, adding an extra challenge. In order to decrease
friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:
*Dry friction is a force that opposes the relative lateral motion of t ...
, the table is periodically sprinkled liberally with tiny, salt-like beads of
silicone
A silicone or polysiloxane is a polymer made up of siloxane (−R2Si−O−SiR2−, where R = organic group). They are typically colorless oils or rubber-like substances. Silicones are used in sealants, adhesives, lubricants, medicine, cooking ...
(often referred to as ''shuffleboard wax'' even though silicone is not a wax, or sometimes as ''shuffleboard sand'', or ''shuffleboard cheese'', due to its visual similarity to grated cheese). These beads act like ball bearings, letting a puck slide down the table a great distance with only a slight push. There are many different speeds of wax to choose from to match the player's skill level. Powdered wax is made of silicone, cornmeal and sometimes compressed walnut shells. The longer the table, the greater speed of wax you need. Faster speed waxes have more silicone and less cornmeal.
Each end of the table is divided into three scoring sections by straight lines across the width of the table. The scoring sections extend from the very edge of either end of the table towards the middle of the table, covering approximately one-third of the length of the table. The outer scoring section, at the end of the table, is labeled with the number "3" in the middle (for "3 points"). The next section is adjacent to this section, of equal length (6 inches), and is labeled with a "2." The final section, "1", is adjacent to section "2." This section continues all the way to the foul line. The foul line measures 6 feet from the end of the table. The center third of the table is unmarked. The line that separates the center third of the table and the beginning of the "1 point" section is called the "foul line" (a weight which does not pass the foul line closest to the player is removed from the table for the round). The table is surrounded by a gutter, or "alley"; pucks that accidentally fall, or are knocked, into a gutter are out of play for the rest of the round.
Game play
Scoring
![Shuffleboard scoring](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Shuffleboard_scoring.jpg)
Players take turns sliding, or "shuffling," the weights to the opposite end of the board, trying to score points, bump opposing pucks off the board, or protect their own pucks from bump-offs. Points are scored by getting a weight to stop in one of the numbered scoring areas. A weight has to completely cross the zone line to count as a full score (if a weight is partially in zone 2 and 3 the weight's score is 2). A weight that's hanging partially over the edge at the end of the table in the 3-point area, called a "hanger" (or sometimes a "shipper"), usually receives an extra point (count as 4). If a puck hangs off the end corner, it receives no additional scoring points other than being a 4 for hanging over the back edge of the board.
Weights that haven't passed the foul line closest to the player are removed for the round. Pucks that fall off or are bumped off the table into the gutter are removed from play for the round. No points are tabulated until the end of the round.
When all weights have been shuffled, the player with the puck closest to the far edge of the table takes points for all pucks that are ahead of their opponent's furthest shot. The other player does not take points. For example: there is a red puck in 3, a red in 1, a blue in 1, but not as close to the end as the red, and two red pucks in 1 but further away from the end of the table than the blue puck. Red player would receive 4 points for the first 2 pucks ahead of the blue and no points for the pucks behind the blue, blue player does not score. The player who scores will shoot first the next round.
In 1974, Reginald Charles Gilchrist invented the digital scoring unit for table shuffleboards while president of Universal Shuffleboards, one of the companies he founded.
Object of the game
The objective of the game is to slide, by hand, all four of one's weights alternately against those of an opponent, so that they reach the highest scoring area without falling off the end of the board into the alley. Furthermore, a player's weight(s) must be farther down the board than their opponent's weight(s), in order to be in scoring position. This may be achieved either by knocking off the opponent's weight(s), or by outdistancing them. Horse collar, the most common form of the game, is played to either 15 or, more typically, 21. Below is an image of the weights on the board. Only the weights in front score.
One-on-one
In one-on-one, each player is assigned a color of puck (4 pucks per player). Play begins at one end of the table, and each player alternates shuffling one weight at a time down towards the opposite end of the table (which becomes the "scoring end" of the table), until all 8 pucks have been shuffled. Each player tries to either land their puck closest to the end of the table, knock the opponent's pucks off the table, knock their own puck into a higher scoring area, or position a puck so that it will block their opponent from being able to hit another puck off the table.
This finishes the "round." Play then continues from the other end of the table, where the pucks have come to rest. When a set number of points has been reached by a player (often 15 or 21), that player has won that "frame." A "match" consists of a predetermined number of frames.
Teams
In two-on-two, teammates stand on the opposite end of the table and play every other round, shooting from alternating ends of the table (i.e. two games are effectively played at once, with team scores combined). Sometimes players will switch to the other end of the table between frames.
An unofficial but common variation has all players at one end of the table. Each player will have 2 weights/shots per round. Teams alternate turns, with each teammate shooting every other turn.
Variations
While there are some official rules agreed upon by shuffleboard organizations, players should be aware that it can be a very informal and spontaneous game, and as such, regional variations and house rules abound. There are some differences by country, as well.
In Canada, the game is played under rules approved by the Canadian Shuffleboard Congress. Except in certain tournaments, in one-on-one play, games are played to 15. Two-person teams compete until one team reaches 21 points. In both cases, a frame consists of four stones (pucks) per player.
Variants and related games
Bankboard/Cushion Shuffleboard/Bumper Shuffleboard
A variant of table shuffleboard, more clearly related to billiards and air hockey, is bankboard (often simply called shuffleboard by its players), in which the player may bounce the puck off one of the rubber cushions or ''banks'' that run the length of both long sides of the table (in place of gutters), e.g. to go around an interfering puck. Bankboard tables are within the shorter range of table sizes (usually 12–13 ft long) and so can be useful for maximizing revenue per square foot of floorspace in a bar or other venue.
''Sjoelen''
A
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
variation known as ''sjoelen'', apparently influenced by
bagatelle
Bagatelle (from the Château de Bagatelle) is a billiards-derived indoor table game, the object of which is to get a number of balls (set at nine in the 19th century) past wooden pins (which act as obstacles) into holes that are guarded by wooden ...
(a
billiards
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as .
There are three major subdivisions of ...
offshoot and
pinball
Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...
ancestor),
bar billiards
Bar billiards is a form of billiards which involves scoring points by potting balls in holes on the playing surface of the table rather than in pockets. Bar billiards developed from the French/Belgian game billard russe, of Russian origin. The cu ...
,
skeeball
Skee-Ball is an arcade game and one of the first redemption games. It is played by rolling a ball up an inclined lane and over a "ball-hop" hump (resembling a ski jump) that jumps the ball into bullseye rings. The object of the game is to collect ...
,
miniature golf
Miniature golf, also known as minigolf, mini-putt, crazy golf, or putt-putt, is an offshoot of the sport of golf focusing solely on the putting aspect of its parent game. The aim of the game is to score the lowest number of points. It is played ...
and related games, makes use of a long, unidirectional board placed on a table in which the goal is to slide 30 wooden pucks towards the end of the board and try to have them enter through small open doorways or arches into numbered scoring boxes. Each player has 3 sub-turns to get as many pucks in the scoring boxes. The boxes are numbered from left to right: 2, 3, 4 and 1. A notable rule is that for each set of pucks (a puck in every box) they count double so instead of 10 points for a set, the player will get 20 points for each set. The maximum score is 148 which is accomplished by getting 7 pucks in 2, 7 pucks in 3, 9 pucks in 4 and 7 pucks in 1. It totals to 7 × 20 + 4 + 4 = 148. However, if the player accomplishes the max score of 148 in less than 3 sub-turns, they are returned one puck for each sub-turn less, increasing the maximum possible score to either 152 (148 in 2 sub-turns) or 156 (148 in 1 sub-turn). The most famous manufacturers of ''sjoelbakken'' (''sjoelen'' boards) are Homas, Heemskerk Sport and Schilte, who mass-produce the game for the continental
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an market and more recently American Sjoel with their branded Shool Game at shoolgame.com in the North American market.
Shove ha'penny
An even more miniaturized, related
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
game, with a much less elongated board and many more scoring zones, is played with coins and known as
shove ha'penny
Shove ha'penny (or shove halfpenny), also known in ancestral form as shoffe-grote ['shove- groat' in Modern English], slype groat ['slip groat'], and slide-thrift, is a pub game in the shuffleboard family, played predominantly ...
.
An evolutionary relationship between the game variants is uncertain.
Bonus Shuffle
In the 1979–1980 version of ''
Beat the Clock
''Beat the Clock'' is an American television game show that involves people trying to complete challenges to win prizes while faced with a time limit. The show was a creation of Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions.
The show began on radio as ' ...
'' which aired on
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
and was hosted by
Monty Hall
Monty Hall (born Monte Halparin; August 25, 1921 – September 30, 2017) was a Canadian radio and television show host who moved to the United States in 1955 to pursue a career in broadcasting. After working as a radio newsreader and sport ...
, the final round of the main game was called Bonus Shuffle, a game of table shuffleboard where the two teams attempted to throw disks to win cash from $300–$1,000. The team whose disk was the farthest won the game and the chance to play the Bonus Stunt for 10 times their Bonus Shuffle amount from $3,000–$10,000.
Tins of Glory World Tinnie Hurling Championships
Tins of Glory World Tinnie Hurling Championships is a version of the game made by
Balter Brewing Company
The Balter Brewing Company is an Australian craft brewery business based in Currumbin, Queensland.
The company was established in 2016 by multiple investors including Australian Surfing Champions Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, Josh Kerr and B ...
using beer cans on a table shuffleboard started in 2017.
[https://www.balter.com.au/news/tins-of-glory]
See also
*
Curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...
References
External links
{{commons category, Table shuffleboard
Table Shuffleboard History InformationTable Shuffleboard RulesShuffleboard Game RulesSjoelen Rules