Isaiah Henen
Period #2 Petanque

Petanque is a very common game played in France. The game is played while standing inside a starting circle with both feet on the ground. You have to throw hollow metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet which literally means “piglet”. It is also sometimes called a le petit “the small one”. The game is normally played on hard dirt, but can also be played on grass, sand or other surfaces.
This game is played by about 17 million people in France, mostly during the summer. It is also played a lot in neighboring country Spain. There is also a professional league called Federation Française de Pétanque et Jeu, there are about 375,000 players in the league, about 3,000 in England, and 1,000 in Lafayette, Louisiana. Another 20,000 or so play in Quebec. Pétanque clubs have arisen in cities throughout the United States in recent years. Petanque is also played in Southeast Asia, Laos, north Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Pétanque is played by two, four or six people in two teams, or players can compete as individuals in casual play. In the singles and doubles games each player has three boules; in triples they have only two. A coin is tossed to decide which side goes first. The starting team draws a circle on the ground. All players must throw their boules from within this circle, with both feet remaining on the ground.
The first player throws the cochonnet into the playing area, it must be at least one meter from the boundary. The player who threw the cochonnet then throws their first boule. A player from the other team then makes a throw. Play continues with the team that is not closest to the cochonnet continuing to throwing until they either land a boule closer to the cochonnet than their opponents or run out of boules.If the closest boules from each team are an equal distance from the cochonnet, then the team that played their boule last plays again. If the boules are still the same difference from the cochonnet at the end of the game then no points are scored by either team.The game continues with a player from the team that won the previous game drawing a new circle around where the cochonnet finished and throwing the cochonnet for a new end.Play ends, and points may be scored when both teams have no more boules, or when the cochonnet is knocked out of play. The winning team receives one point for each boule that it has closer to the cochonnet than the closes boule of the opposite team. If the cochonnet is knocked out of play, no team scores unless only one team has boules left to play, then the team with boules receives one point for each that they have left. The first team to reach 13 points wins.