Member of the Month: Mark Isley

Member Name: Mark Isley

Where do you live? Kansas City, MO

What has been your most memorable experience playing this game? Attending the World Championships in 2011

How do you develop your skills? (practice/tournaments/leagues?) Explain: Playing/ Running Leagues 2/3 nights per week.  Taking the time to practice.  The only way to get to the level you want to reach is through practice.

What is the best way to support the growth for cornhole? Spreading the word by promoting charity events/ tournaments and leagues.  I run a website, www.kccornhole.com. In addition to running leagues and tournaments, we sell top quality cornhole equipment (customizable) at a competitive price.  Also you can find us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kcornhole. and on twitter at @KCCornhole.

What are some issues or concerns that could be improved upon? Making the game more competitive at all levels.  I have developed a handicapping system in my leagues so everyone has a chance to compete.  Although it isn’t a perfect system, it would be nice to see a universal handicapping system so that players from different skill levels could compete on the same platform.

If you could better develop one aspect of your game what would that be? I would like to be more consistent with air mails.  Once you learn the game and can develop a strategy, the hardest thing for me being able to put the bag in a small area at a higher percentage of the time.

Have you ever participated in a cornhole league? If so, tell us about it:  Yes, my company called KCCornhole has been running leagues and tournaments in Kansas City for the past 3-4 years.  I have started doing the handicap leagues just within the past 18 months.  It brings more teams into the league, and allows every team that enters to be competitive.  The top teams in the league may have a zero handicap and the lesser skilled teams may have up to a 15 handicap.  The scoring is simple just subtract the lower number handicap from the higher number and the score will reflect the difference when each game starts.  For example if a 4 handicap team plays an 11 handicap team the score going into each game would be 7-0 for the lower level team. Each match is 3 games regardless who wins.  This allows us to have everyone playing equal number of games.  Our leagues typically last 8 weeks with the 9^th week being the League tournament.  We pay out over 100% cash and gift cards.  Our leagues cost $100/ team.

Describe the ideal cornhole league:  We offer doubleheader leagues in KC. This allows teams to get much more “bang for the buck”.  Each team is guaranteed to play 6 games ( 2 matches per week) against two different opponents. Our venues will generally offer food and drink specials for our patrons.  Select bars will also offer a free shot or free drink to any person who throws a 12 (4 in the hole) during league play.  We have recently adopted an idea that I got from Boone Rogers called the money shot.  The idea is to sell raffle tickets each week and draw tickets weekly for a competitor to throw 4 bags.  If he/she makes 3 in the hole they win the pot.  This has created quite a stir in our Monday night league at Paddy O’ Quigley’s in KC.  We recently gave away a pot of over $2,000 in our last league.  This was won by Devin Wetzel a 13 year old boy!  We sell tickets -1 for $5.00/ 3 for $10.00 and 7 for $20.00.  We started out drawing a couple times the first two weeks. After nobody hit the money shot we got to drawing 8 times per week.  We dump the tickets each week if there isn’t a winner and then start reselling the next week.  This is what makes the pot grow so high!  The catch is we allow everyone to yell/ bang on tables and make noise during the money shot to make it more difficult to win.

What is the best part about playing cornhole?  The competition and the people!  The best thing about cornhole is that any sex, race, age can play on the same platform.

Why did you become a member of the Cornhole Players Association (CPA)?  I met Steve Venderver at the king of Cornhole in Elizabeth, IN – 2011.  He seemed to care for the greater good of the game and has me on board for what the CPA stands for.  For the players and for the game. I continue to pick Steve’s brain on a monthly basis and he is always willing to share ideas on how to make the game more popular.

What needs to be done to keep players participating in tournaments?  On a national level I think a large corporate sponsor would be the best to provide larger cash prizes for all levels of play as well as a good handicapping system.  Website promotions and TV coverage couldn’t hurt as well.

Do you think there should be two divisions for cornhole and why? (Recreational/Competitive)  Absolutely.  If everyone has to compete against the best the sport would fail.  In a perfect world I would like to see several levels of divisions.  Maybe a Pro division followed by an Elite division and then maybe an A/B/C/D levels as well.  There could be state/ regional and national rankings for each division.  Also adding state and regional qualifiers in each division and having a US Open Championship would be cool too.  Then award prizes for each division.