Shove Ha'penny

A shuffleboard-like game, Shove Ha'penny has apparently been around the taverns of England since the fifteenth century. It's called Shove Ha'penny because it's played with a Half-Penny coin. The object of the game is to slide the coin so that it rests between the lines. To win, you have to have get a coin in each "bed" - the sections between the lines. You also score extra if you get three to five of your coins in a single bed.

Every game I learn about teaches me a new way of playing a game I already know. That's why I'm so interested in games from other countries and other eras. Now I know how to design a desktop shuffleboard game, how to develop a different scoring system for shuffleboard, and how to create a shuffleboard-like version of Shove Ha'penny.

My apparent knowledge of this relatively obscure game can be traced directly to the Pub Games section of the Online Guide to Traditional Games.

You can actually purchase pub games, and other traditional games, from the Masters Games collection, where you can also get more complete versions of the rules.