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 wooden 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.
Shuffleboard tables vary in length, usually within a 9–22-foot range (2.7–6.7 m), and are at least 20 inches (510 mm) 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, the table is periodically sprinkled liberally with tiny, salt-like beads of silicone (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 that is needed. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the U.S. League and Tournament Rules are established by The Shuffleboard Federation and the Table Shuffleboard Association. These rules can be very detailed and complex. The Shuffleboard Federation also has more basic rules that are geared towards beginners and casual recreational players. These fall under the heading of How To Play Shuffleboard. The Shuffleboard Federation website also provides rules and instructions for other games that can be played on a shuffleboard table, such as Horse Collar and Crazy Eights. [1] [2] [3] [4]
A Dutch variation known as sjoelen , apparently influenced by bagatelle (a billiards offshoot and pinball ancestor), bar billiards, skeeball, miniature golf 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 as they can 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 European market. A typical sjoelbak is two metres long and 40cm wide, although there are slight variations between manufacturers and models. [5]
A Sjoelen World Cup has taken place since 2008; [6] the 2023 edition took place in Beneden-Leeuwen, Netherlands on 1 and 2 September 2023 [7] and was organized by the Algemene Nederlandse Sjoelbond (the Dutch governing body of the sport, which is affiliated with the NOC*NSF).
An even more miniaturized, related British game, with a much less elongated board and many more scoring zones, is played with coins and known as shove ha'penny. [8] An evolutionary relationship between the game variants is uncertain.
In the 1979–1980 version of Beat the Clock which aired on CBS and was hosted by Monty Hall, 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 is a version of the game made by Balter Brewing Company using beer cans on a table shuffleboard started in 2017. [9] [10] [11]
Crokinole is a disk-flicking dexterity board game, possibly of Canadian origin, similar to the games of pitchnut, carrom, and pichenotte, with elements of shuffleboard and curling reduced to table-top size. Players take turns shooting discs across the circular playing surface, trying to land their discs in the higher-scoring regions of the board, particularly the recessed centre hole of 20 points, while also attempting to knock opposing discs off the board, and into the 'ditch'. In crokinole, the shooting is generally towards the centre of the board, unlike carroms and pitchnut, where the shooting is towards the four outer corner pockets, as in pool. Crokinole is also played using cue sticks, and there is a special category for cue stick participants at the World Crokinole Championships in Tavistock, Ontario, Canada.
Crazy Eights is a shedding-type card game for two to seven players and the best known American member of the Eights Group which also includes Pig and Spoons. The object of the game is to be the first player to discard all of their cards. The game is similar to Switch, Mau Mau or Whot!.
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game, traditionally for two players, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. It can be adapted for three or four players.
Shufflepuck Café is an air hockey video game developed by Christopher Gross, Gene Portwood and Lauren Elliott for Broderbund. Originally developed for the Macintosh, it was later adapted by Broderbund for the Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Famicom, X68000, PC-98, and MS-DOS.
500 rum, also called pinochle rummy, Michigan rummy, Persian rummy, rummy 500 or 500 rummy, is a popular variant of rummy. The game of canasta and several other games are believed to have developed from this popular form of rummy. The distinctive feature of 500 rum is that each player scores the value of the sets or cards they meld. It may be played by 2 to 8 players, but it is best for 3 to 5.
Darts or dart-throwing is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small sharp-pointed projectiles known as darts at a round target known as a dartboard.
Carrom is a tabletop game of Indian origin in which players flick discs, attempting to knock them to the corners of the board. In South Asia, many clubs and cafés hold regular tournaments. Carrom is commonly played by families, including children, and at social functions. Different standards and rules exist in different areas.
Air hockey is a Pong-like tabletop sport where two opposing players try to score goals against each other on a low-friction table using two hand-held discs (mallets/pushers) and a lightweight plastic puck.
Cutthroat or cut-throat, also sometimes referred to as three-man-screw, is a typically three-player or team pocket billiards game, played on a pool table, with a full standard set of pool balls ; the game cannot be played with three or more players with an unnumbered reds-and-yellows ball set, as used in blackball. Each player is commonly assigned a set of five consecutively numbered object balls, though the number of balls will vary by number of players. The object of the game is to be the last player with at least one ball of their group remaining on the table.
Beat the Clock is an American television game show. Contestants attempted to complete challenges such as physical stunts within a time limit in order to win prizes. The show was a creation of Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions.
Shuffleboard is a game in which players use cues to push weighted discs, sending them gliding down a narrow court, with the purpose of having them come to rest within a marked scoring area. As a more generic term, it refers to the family of shuffleboard-variant games as a whole.
ITHF table hockey is a sport played on table hockey games. International Table Hockey Federation (ITHF) is an organization that oversees these competitions. The origin of the sport was the Swedish Championship 1982 in Upplands Väsby. Organized table hockey is played in northern, central and eastern Europe, in North America, but table hockey is also played in South America, Africa, Australia, and Asia.
Belote is a 32-card, trick-taking, ace–ten game played primarily in France and certain European countries, namely Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Luxembourg, Moldova, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and also in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. It is one of the most popular card games in those countries, and the national card game of France, both casually and in gambling. It appeared around 1900 in France, and is a close relative of both Klaberjass and klaverjas. Closely related games are played throughout the world. Definitive rules of the game were first published in French in 1921.
Chapayev is a board game, a hybrid of checkers (draughts) and gamepiece-impact games like carrom, novuss, and pichenotte, giving it gameplay aspects in common with both billiards and table shuffleboard on a smaller scale, as well as some checkers strategy. It is played throughout the territory of the former USSR. The aim is to knock the opponent's pieces off the board. The game is named after the Russian Civil War hero, Vasily Chapayev.
Sheng ji is a family of point-based, trick-taking card games played in China and in Chinese immigrant communities. They have a dynamic trump, i.e., which cards are trump changes every round. As these games are played over a wide area with no standardization, rules vary widely from region to region.
Rotation, sometimes called rotation pool, 15-ball rotation, or 61, is a pool game, played with a pocketed billiards table, cue ball, and triangular rack of fifteen billiard balls, in which the lowest-numbered object ball on the table must be always struck by the cue ball first, to attempt to pocket numbered balls for points.
Five-pin billiards or simply five-pins or 5-pins, is today usually a carom billiards form of cue sport, though sometimes still played on a pocket table. In addition to the customary three balls of most carom games, it makes use of a set of five upright pins (skittles) arranged in a "+" pattern at the center of the table. The game is popular especially in Italy and Argentina, but also in some other parts of Latin America and Europe, with international, televised professional tournaments. It is sometimes referred to as Italian five-pins or Italian billiards, or as simply italiana. A variant of the game, goriziana or nine-pins, adds additional skittles to the formation. A related pocket game, with larger pins, is played in Scandinavia and is referred to in English as Danish pin billiards, with a Swedish variant that has some rules more similar to the Italian game.
Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a baize-covered snooker table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white cue ball, 15 red balls worth one point each, and six balls of different colours: yellow, green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6), black (7). A player wins a frame of snooker by scoring more points than the opponent(s), using the cue ball to pot the red and coloured object balls. A player wins a match when they have achieved the best-of score from a pre-determined number of frames. The number of frames is always odd so as to prevent a tie or a draw.
Cornhole is a lawn game popular in North America in which players or teams take turns throwing fabric bean bags at an inclined 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 or putting a bag through the hole.
Trictrac is a French board game of skill and chance for two players that is played with dice on a game board similar, but not identical, to that of backgammon. It was "the classic tables game" of France in the way that backgammon is in the English-speaking world.
