Four Corners Bingo
Mark the four corner squares of the card and shout bingo. Nothing else on the card counts, so a game is over in a few minutes. It is the classic warm-up before a longer pattern, and the easiest win to explain to a room of children.
How to play
The caller announces four corners before the first ball. Players daub as usual, but only the top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right squares count. The first player with all four calls out bingo, and the caller checks those four squares against the numbers called.
How long a game takes
On a 75-ball card the corners are in the B and O columns, so only B and O balls move the game. In our simulation of 75-ball games, with 30 cards in play someone usually has four corners after 26 to 38 calls, with 100 cards after 19 to 30. That is about half the calls a blackout takes.
Variations
Inside corners uses the four squares diagonal to the free space. Four corners and the centre adds the free space, which changes nothing on a card that has one, so some halls make it the middle square of a card without a free space. A postage stamp is the bigger cousin: a 2x2 block in one corner.
Checking a winner
When a player calls bingo, read out their card number. With cards from BingoInk, the winner check marks the card with the calls so far and says whether the four corners are complete, so nobody has to read the card aloud.
More patterns
- Postage stamp: A 2x2 block of squares in any corner, like a stamp on an envelope.
- Blackout: Every square on the card. Also called coverall: the longest game, often the last of the night.
- All bingo patterns, with pictures.