The board has three columns of ten each from left to right, black, white and red. The pegs start in the middle white column and the goal is to put all of them on the same side column, whether red or black, before the deck runs out. A deck of cards, shuffled and drawn one-by-one determine what pegs can move where.
Pegs that total a face card's number must be moved the direction based on its color. Black means move a peg leftward, if the peg is already in the black it must move right, while red goes rightward with a peg in red moving left. The full total of the card must be played, and a peg of a value can only move at most once. Kings and queens allow you to move any one peg and jacks let you move two.
As mentioned, the game is similar to Shut the Box in that the goal is to align counters entirely from one state to another, which counters can move determined by the total of a dice roll in a finite number of moves. The main differences are that in Shut the Box lowered counters cannot revert, there is only one goal state and a roll that cannot be played in full is rendered null. This latter state is important as in Gee-Haw no turn can be skipped.
But how much strategy does Shut the Box need?
One skill can be used for Gee-Haw: card counting. Unlike Shut the Box, you can reasonably anticipate what sorts of cards will appear that you can use to your favor. The skill/luck balance involved is less biased to the latter and thus gameplay is not as finicky.
McCord plans to retail Gee-Haw as a peg game, but what's stopping anyone from using switches?
