How Do You Keep Score In Shuffleboard: Tap And Draw Edition
If you’re wondering how do you keep score in shuffleboard, what you really need to know are the rules particular to the specific game you’re playing. In the case of Tap and Draw, the rules are mostly similar to other games you play on shuffleboard tables, with a couple variations. If you want to add this game to your shuffleboard roster, read on!
The Basic Rules of Tap and Draw
As with most games, Tap and Draw can be played one-on-one or with teams. The object of the game is to send your pucks into the highest scoring area on the board, without knocking any other pucks off the table. Players alternate pucks in each round, meaning the first player throws their first puck, then the second player throws their first puck, and repeat until all pucks have been released.
The big difference, and challenge, in Tap and Draw, comes in making sure you don’t knock off any weights. You can attempt to tap one of your own weights in order to send it into a higher scoring area, but this is where the difficulty lies. If you knock your own weight off the shuffleboard table, it remains off the board and out of play. If you knock an opponent’s weight off the board, your weight gets removed from the game and your opponent’s weight is returned to its original position. If you knock off an opponent’s weight while also advancing one of your own, then you’ve really done it. In that event, your opponent’s weight returns to the game, the weight you advanced returns to its earlier position, and the weight you shot is taken out of play. If you tap any of your opponent’s weights, they get to stay in their improved scoring position.
As you can see, it can be easy to inadvertently aid your opponent in this game, so the tricky part becomes trying to utilize the opportunity to tap your own weights ahead without getting any of your opponent’s weights involved.
The Scoring of Tap and Draw
Now you know how to play, here’s the answer to how do you keep score. In shuffleboard, it’s common to score games in one of two ways. You can score like Knock Off, in which you play up to 15 points, or you can score like Horse Collar, in which you play up to 51 points.
If you’re playing like Knock Off, a puck counts for one point if it lands between the foul line and the two line, two points if it’s past the two line, three points if it’s past the three line, and four points for hangers (pucks that are hanging off the edge).
If you’re playing like Horse Collar, scoring is similar except that hangers become worth 13 points instead of four, and if your weight manages to hang off a corner of the board (rather than the flat edge), that will be worth 26 points. Playing like Horse Collar also means that you have to land a puck worth three, 13, or 26 points during your first round in order to score at all. If you don’t, you have to keep trying until you do.
Tap and Draw is played until the last player throws the last puck. This means that even if you or your team have scored the game-winning amount of points, you could still lose if the other team or player scores higher than you on their last round.
“How do you keep score in shuffleboard?” is always a good question to ask, since there’s more than one answer depending on the game. A game like Tap and Draw offers you options in terms of scoring, so it’s good to know that you can tweak the game based on how many people are playing and how much time you have. Shuffleboard tables make any situation more fun, so the more games you learn to play, the better.
