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Carrom

The South Asian board game, to the Laws of the International Carrom Federation. Nine white men, nine black and the red queen are set in the middle of a square board with a pocket in each corner. You flick the heavier striker from your own base, and every man of your colour you pocket stays down. Pocket the queen, cover her with a man of your own, and clear your nine before the other player clears theirs. A board is worth what the loser has left on it; the match is twenty-five points or eight boards.

Play Carrom Leaderboard

The rules

  1. The breaker plays white and the first stroke is the break. The men are set in a ring round the queen, and if the break moves nothing you have three chances at it before the turn passes.
  2. Set the striker anywhere on your base, the two lines on your side, so that it touches both lines and either covers an end circle wholly or does not touch it. Drag it along the base to position it, pull back to aim, and let go: the striker flies the opposite way to the pull, as hard as you pulled.
  3. Pocket a man of your colour and you stroke again. Pocket nothing and the turn passes. Pocket a man of the other colour and it stays down for them and the turn passes, unless one of your own went down with it.
  4. Pocket the striker and you pay a due: one of the men you have already pocketed is put back in the centre and the turn passes. If you have none yet, the due is owed and is taken from the first man you pocket.
  5. The queen may be pocketed once you have pocketed a man of your own. She must then be covered by pocketing one of your own men on the same stroke or the very next one; if she is not, she goes back to the centre.
  6. The queen pocketed before you have earned her, or with a due outstanding, goes back to the centre and the turn passes. The queen and the striker pocketed together is a due, but the queen stays down to be covered and your turn continues.
  7. A returned man is placed by the server on the centre spot, or the nearest clear spot to it. Nobody's hand is on the board here, so there is no choosing where it goes.

How a board ends

  1. The board ends when one player's nine men are all pocketed. That player takes one point for every man the other still has on the board, up to nine, and three more for the queen if they covered her, so long as they were under twenty-two points when the board began.
  2. Pocket your last man while the queen is still on the board and you lose the board. The other player takes three, or one if they already had twenty-two or more.
  3. Dues still owed when a board ends are written off. The break passes to the other player for the next board, whoever won.
  4. A board is worth twelve points at the very most.

How the match is won

  1. The first player to twenty-five points wins, or the player ahead after eight boards. Level after eight boards, a ninth is played.
  2. The queen is worth three only while you are under twenty-two; at twenty-two or more she wins the board but adds nothing.
  3. A resignation or a missed deadline ends the match against that player. Every move has the same deadline, chosen when the table is made.

Worth knowing before you start

  1. A soft stroke pots more than a hard one. The pockets are not much wider than the striker, and a man hit hard rattles out where a man rolled in would have dropped.
  2. Cover before you clear. Your last man pocketed with the queen still out loses you the board, so the queen is the second to last thing to take, never the last.
  3. The striker is heavier than a man and goes where a man would stop, which is how it finds a pocket of its own. Aim through the man, not at the pocket, when the man sits near one.
  4. The men slide and do not roll, so a thin hit sends a man a long way and a full hit stops the striker dead. Rebounds off the frame are true, and a man you cannot reach straight can often be reached off a side.

The seed decides who breaks the first board and the sub-millimetre jitter in the opening ring, so no two breaks are the same; it is published when the match ends. The strokes themselves are physics, not chance. Two things are decided for you: a returned man is placed on the centre spot by the server and not by the other player, because nobody's hand is on the board here; and the queen pocketed together with the striker, once you have earned her, costs a due and keeps your turn, which is Law 99 read as written.

Carrom terms

The base
The two parallel lines on your side of the board that the striker must touch before every stroke, with a circle at each end it may cover wholly or not at all.
A due
The penalty for pocketing the striker: one of your pocketed men goes back to the centre. Owed, if you have none yet.
The queen
The red man in the middle. Three points to the player who pockets and covers her, while they are under twenty-two.
The cover
A man of your own pocketed on the same stroke as the queen or the next one. Without it the queen goes back to the centre.
A board
One setting of the men, from the break to the last man. A match is twenty-five points or eight boards of them.

Playing it here

  • Against a person or the bot. The bot needs no account and starts at once. To play a person, be rated and keep your games, you need an account: an email address and a password.
  • At your own pace. Every move has a deadline you both see, from one minute to a week. A game can take an evening or it can take a fortnight.
  • Nothing to buy and nothing to win. No stakes, no prizes, no boosts, no undo. The only thing on offer is a place on a leaderboard, and only if you want one.
  • Every game can be checked. Anything decided by chance comes from the game's seed, and the seed is published the moment the game ends, so any finished game can be replayed and verified by anyone. See fair play.