How to conquer amusement park and carnival games

I was at Kennywood on Monday, and amazingly my group of three managed to win 5 nice stuff animals during the course of the day. And I believe we spent about $20 on games. This was definitely my most successful gaming experience at a park.

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Gotta love AMAZON.COM....

$3.95 for the book.....$3.99 for the shipping.

LOL! CBaby and I used to duel each other weekly with the waterguns @ VF--until she started kicking my butt. By the end of last summer, we used to sneak in games with 4 or more players and 'steal' the large prize from them.

I spend $9/week and get 3-4 medium stuffed thingies. While I've lost my touch altogether this year with the guns, my 'toss the ping-pong ball in the round floating cup' skills have gone way, way up. Two small prizes per play is a bad week for me.

I'm flirting with the idea of buying some softballs and a milk jug and practicing in the off-season...

-'Playa

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The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.

I mostly just stick to the games I'm good at, which is mainly limited to the darts games. We used to play darts so much in college that it's almost a second nature now. Only problem is that the "GP" inevitably abuses the darts so that the fins get crooked and dont always fly straight!

I also found this cool little bowling game @ SFDL. It like a hand held ball (about the size of a man's shot in the shot put) and a little mini lane. I hit the pocket on my first couple of throws, but kept getting no-tap nines. So I just decided to throw the thing harder and won twice in a row. I kept one, "T" kept the other (she didnt want the "large" prizes).

But what I *need* to understand is that "Bank a Ball" tilted easel type game. I am *convinced* that it only takes practice to learn that. I gotta find me someone to sneak me one of those balls and tell me the dimensions!
jeremy
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"To get inside this head of mine, would take a monkey-wrench, and a lot of wine" Res How I Do

The only games I am ever good at is the basketball ( natural touch :)) and the one at PKI where you are on the rope and hyou have to touch the red flag. EASY! Anyone got any tips for games at Indiana Beach or CP?

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2Hostyl, I won that Bank a Ball game the first try ! Just watch them play a little bit, and it's really easy. I play the dart game all the time too. I play darts at work almost daily...it's just too easy !

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Current favorite coasters:
Wooden: 1) Beast 2) Raven 3) Son of Beast 4) The Boss 5) Timber Wolf
Steel: 1) Raging Bull 2) Millennium Force 3) V2 4) Wild Thing 5) Mr. Freeze
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I know a trick for the infamous "ring toss".

Stack 2 or 3 rings on top of each other, and try to throw them like you throw a softball at the closes bottle to you, the other 1 or 2 extra rings shoul push the first ring back down, resulting in a win. I works almost everytime if you get it perfectly on.

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NITRO ~ The most EXPLOSIVE coaster on the planet!
Im not opinionated, im just always RIGHT!

Heh, yea that *is* the secret to the ring toss, but most parks have rules against double/triple/multiple tossing of rings.

So if you do that, make the the games attendant isn't lookin ;)

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Tidal Wave... Sky Whirl... what's next... Whizzer? (Guess it's time to update sig :\ )

bmp143 says:

Gotta love AMAZON.COM....

$3.95 for the book.....$3.99 for the shipping.

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The value of the product never dictates the cost of shipping. I deal with medical parts and exporting them to different countries.

You would be amazed at some of the low dollar items we ship overseas and the shipping costs associated with them.

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Ric Flair was hitting on the female host, he told her - "Space Mountain may be the oldest ride in the park, but it has the longest line." WOOOOO!

Fascination...the ONLY game worth playing IMHO. Wish more parks had a parlor....

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"I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T! I mean S-M-A-R-T!" - Homer Simpson

2Hostyl,
This game is easy once you master it (it involves a little cheating, but what the hell). The ball they use is a whiffle ball. They tell you not to lean on the counter, and that's where the "cheating" comes in. Usually the game-ops are young, most of them either don't mind if you lean on the counter or they aren't paying close attention lean as close to the easel as possible. Throw the ball SOFTLY with a minor backspin. You want to aim for the middle- bottom. Too high and you will over-shoot the box. Too low and you will hit the lip on the bottom of the easel and that will mess things up. I've got X-mas presents covered for my sister nad neice from that game!!

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Coasters and Chronic
What a Combo!

One of the local news stations in MPLS sent two guys to the MN State Fair. They each got $40, one got to read the book and the other did not. In the end they both came out pretty even.

Weird story, Walking through the crowd at the state fair midway(sat.) some guy came up to me and asked "What is the name of the guy who is Spiderman?" I answered him and he gave me $10.

Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Sure they give you the secret to playing these games. But that doesn't necessaraly mean that it will be easier. I mean for some people the secret can be more difficult then playing the game the ordinay way.

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www.morefunonline.tv

Games at the MN State Fair aren't at ALL like visiting a theme park. The fair's games teem with slithering rat carnies who cheat like dogs. Frankly, you can win any game there if you pay $10-20 up front. If you aren't, heaven help you.

One of those filthy, yellow-eyed, small-handed vermin snatched a ball out of mid-air to prevent Playette from winning a prize on her first game attempt. If she payed $20, she could have leaned over the counter as far as she wanted to....but since she said no and sunk two of her first three balls, he lunged at number three and yelled at her for 'breaking the rules' until he was sure she was rattled.

I say to all of them, get out of town....and then go get your teeth fixed.

-'Playa

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The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.

DJVIC: While you cannot actually touch the counter (that *would* be cheating) you can actually lean over the counter quite far. There is a little line inside of the booth that actually marks the *true* foul line. The lady (mid 40s?) working the game @ SFoT actually told me to use that entire space up to the line (my arms are long). I got close, but never quite there. A little more practice is all I need, but opportunities have been far between.
lata,
jeremy
--who figures the game could be easily solved with a little geometry and physics.

I won the bank-a-ball game for the first time a few weeks ago. I gae it back spin and shot it softly a little higher than center.

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-Sean

Mamoosh,

I agree about fascination. I dropped over 20 dollars on it at Kennywood last week. I won 4 times in a row at one point.

Secret to winning fascination: Yeah, Like I would tell my secret. I will say it has a lot to do with less speed, consistency, and patience. Throwing the ball just to get it in the holes before everyone else is not the way to win.

Oh, on the bottle ring toss. I found that my chances of winning have been increased by throwing the ring at the side of a bottle and letting the ring bouce all over the place. Spinng the ring helps too. Rather then try to "top" the bottle, I just randomly let the ring bounce. This gives each ring a better chance of hooking a bottle top. A good through can give up to 7 bouces or more.

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Do the Moo Shoo!

One time I was at CP, and I was with a friend who liked games, and I wasn't really into them. So we went, the 1st game, little rings on the bottles for big 4ft stuffed toys.. I baught 10 rings. I hooked 3 of them! They had to scream 3 times in 2 minutes! They only had pink panters and genie monkies, so I got a panther, and 2 monkeys, and gave a monkey to a little kid in the park. LOL I've never won anything since. LOL

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Weird story, Walking through the crowd at the state fair midway(sat.) some guy came up to me and asked "What is the name of the guy who is Spiderman?" I answered him and he gave me $10.

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Maybe it was that dude from the game show oblivous (SP) new one on TNN?

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