Carnival/Fairground games

[Jon Corby]

As most of you will no doubt remember, I saw George Burley at Thorpe Park last week.

Another thing I did while there, was get suckered into a carnival game - called Rebound. There was a very slightly angled board with a HUGE basket under it. All you had to do was bounce a ball off the board into a bucket. The guy running the stall demonstrated what to do, effortlessly bouncing the ball into the basket each time. IT LOOKED SO DAMN EASY. But I had 8 goes and couldn't do it once, meaning I didn't win an enormous Sonic The Hedeghog soft toy.

Have you ever beaten a carnival game? Do you have any know-how/tips?

[Lesley Hines]

The shooting ones are always easy; we're a Scooby Doo, a pink pig and various other crap better off for them. (My Dad taught me to shoot when I was a kid, which helps.)

There was a show on TV a while back that showed some of the tricks they use in carnival games to make it look dead easy on demonstration but nigh on impossible otherwise. For knocking the tin cans off a shelf they'd put the heaviest ones on the bottom row for demonstration but put light ones on the bottom for the punters so they're really tough to knock off. Some gobshite manning the basketball thing at the Safari Park insisted there was a trick to it - you had to get the spin / angle right or it wouldn't go in, and you're never going to pay for enough goes to get the hang of it properly. They're not set up the same as normal so even if you're a dead cert normally it won't help you on them.

Stick to the waltzers

[Liam Tiernan]

they'd put the heaviest ones on the bottom row for demonstration but put light ones on the bottom for the punters so they're really tough to knock off.

Other way around, surely?

[Ryan Taylor]

I won on hook-a-duck at Hull Fair. Video's of my win and tips on how to win at hook-a-duck can be found on my Facebook page.

[Lesley Hines]

they'd put the heaviest ones on the bottom row for demonstration but put light ones on the bottom for the punters so they're really tough to knock off.

Other way around, surely?

Yeah, maybe. I can't remember specifically, just that it was a con. I remembered being surprised at the way round at the time, so figured they must have done it like that. I'm trying to find out which it is and came across these on the peg hoopla and various games* - they're both interesting. This article quite nicely makes the point about optical illusions and stuff that's difficult to judge.

*Shame the bleedin' youtube vid doesn't work