Cornhole tourney comes to Shawnee

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The Shawnee Lodge is about to be over run by hundreds of cornhole players.

Beginning Friday evening and lasting all weekend, the Second Annual Cabin Fever Cornhole Showdown will take over the Portsmouth area.

The will be players from all over the world attending the event, including American Cornhole Organization (ACO) professionals. The are 16,000 registered players in the world and the ACO designates 64 as professionals every year.

“It’s like the NFL for cornhole,” event organizer and Wheelersburg native Derrick Hammond said.

The No. 1 player in the world, Matt Guy, will be entering the Cabin Fever Showdown main tournament, which begins shortly after 10 a.m. on Saturday morning. Guy is a former professional horseshoe thrower and has made several appearances on ESPN. He’s also won 10 world titles while playing cornhole.

If anyone is interested in viewing the tournament, there will be two TVs setup at the lodge, which will stream the event.

“I am going to stream it to two the TVs to keep the playing area freed up a little bit,” Hammond said. “We have eight sets of boards in there and last year it was kind of crowded in there.”

For anyone who wants to play in the main tournament, the registration is $25 and will take place Saturday between 8-10 a.m. First prize is $1,000, second place receives $500, while third place walks away with $400. All together, there will be $2,300 given away over the weekend.

For anyone who wants to participate but doesn’t want to enter the main tournament, Hammond recommends attending Friday evening, anytime between 5 p.m.-3 a.m.

“Most of the locals will want to come out Friday night and get in the 5, 10, $25 blind draws,” Hammond said. “A lot of people that say they’re not that good, but want to play and don’t want to get in the main tournament will want to come out Friday night.

“That’s what I would advise to them.”

Hammond, who was designated as a pro last year but missed the cut by a point this season, said he created the Cabin Fever showdown because after traveling all over the country to participate in various tournaments, he wanted to bring the revenue dollars attached to those tournaments to Portsmouth.

According to Hammond, 1,000 people attended the first-annual tournament last year and the Shawnee lodge reaped the benefits of having a packed house and full cabins. However, the biggest source of revenue last year and definitely this year will be the beer sales.

“The beer sales were huge because nobody drinks beer like cornhole players,” Hammond said jokingly. “That’s pretty much an excuse to drink. It puts darts and bowling to shame when it comes to drinking. There’s even a movie about cornhole and drinking. So, they brought a lot of revenue to the alcohol sales.”

Hammond anticipates at least 1,000 people showing up again this year but wouldn’t be surprised if the attendance mark was closer to 2,000.

By Chris Slone

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Reach Chris Slone at 740-353-3101, ext 1930, or on Twitter @crslone.

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