How to play carrom
Flick a striker across a smooth board to pocket your nine men before the other side pockets theirs, and cover the queen on the way.
- Players
- 2 to 4
- What you need
- A carrom board, 9 white and 9 black men, the queen and a striker
- How long
- A board takes ten or fifteen minutes
What carrom is
Carrom is played on a smooth square board with a pocket in each corner. You flick a heavy striker at the lighter men to knock them into the pockets.
A board is in most homes, hostels and offices in Nepal, and it comes out at every holiday. Two play singles, and four play doubles with partners sitting opposite.
Here you can play bots at four levels, friends online, or up to four people round one phone.
The board
The playing surface is 74 cm square with a pocket 4.45 cm across in each corner. Each side has two base lines with a red circle at each end, and a small circle in the middle is where the queen stands.
You strike from your own side. The striker sits between your two base lines, touching both, and never past the circles at their ends.
Setting up
- The queen goes in the centre circle.
- Six men go round her, white and black in turn.
- Twelve more go round those, with the whites making a Y.
- Whoever breaks plays white. A break that touches nothing may be tried again, three times in all.
A stroke
Place the striker on your base line, aim and flick it. Where it meets a man decides where the man goes: straight on for a full hit, off to the side for a thin one.
Pocket one of your own men and you play again. Your turn lasts as long as you keep pocketing.
A man of the other colour that you pocket counts for them, and your turn ends.
The queen
The red queen may be pocketed once you have pocketed a man of your own. Taken before that, she goes back to the centre and your turn ends.
Once in, she has to be covered: pocket one of your own men on the same stroke or the next. If you do not, she goes back to the centre.
The side that covers her scores 3 extra points for the board, but only while it has 21 points or fewer.
Fouls
Pocketing the striker is a foul. One of the men you have pocketed goes back to the centre, and so does any of yours that went down on that stroke. If you have none yet, you owe one.
Pocketing your last man before the queen is covered loses the board, by 3 points.
Pocketing the other side's last man loses the board as well, by your men still on the board and the queen.
Winning a board and a game
A board ends when a side has pocketed all nine of its men with the queen covered. The winner scores a point for every man the other side still has on the board.
A game is 25 points or eight boards, whichever comes first. The break goes round the table from board to board.
In a points game anybody may pocket any man. A man is worth 1 and the queen 3, and the board ends when every man is gone.
Playing here
To place the striker, drag along your own strip of the board, between your base line and the frame, or use the slider on the rail. A tap in the strip puts the striker where you tapped.
To strike, press anywhere else on the board and pull back, the way you would a catapult. The line shows the aim and the ring round the striker shows the power. Let go to strike, or come back to where you started to cancel.
Move slowly to aim finely: a slow drag turns the aim at a third of the speed. The aim guide shows what the striker will touch first.
On a computer the mouse works the same way. The arrow keys slide the striker, A and D turn the aim, W and S set the power, and Space strikes.
On one phone everybody shoots from their own side of the board, and the board stays still, the way a real one does.
A few tactics
- Pot gently. A soft stroke that just reaches the pocket keeps the striker on the board.
- Watch where the striker goes after the hit. It is nearly three times the weight of a man and follows it.
- Cover the queen early, while you still have men to cover her with.
- Leave your men near the pockets and the other side's in the middle.
- A man against the frame is easiest to pot along it: send the striker along the frame into it.
Settings
Every setting is on the game's page before you start. These are the defaults, and what changing each one does.
| Setting | Standard | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Who is playing | Against bots | Play bots, friends online, or several people on this phone |
| Players | 2 | Four play doubles with partners opposite, and three play for points |
| Difficulty | Medium | How many shots a bot looks for, and how steady its aim is |
| Game | 25 points or eight boards | One board is a short game |
| Scoring | Own colour | Points lets anybody pocket anything, each for themselves |
| The queen | Only after your first man | Lets the queen go at any time |
| Aim guide | To what the striker hits first | Shows the man's line too, or nothing at all |
| Speed | 1× | Plays the shots and the pauses faster |
Words
- Striker
- The big white disc you flick.
- Man
- One of the nine white or nine black pieces.
- Queen
- The red piece in the middle, worth 3 to whoever covers her.
- Cover
- Pocketing one of your men with the queen or on the stroke after her.
- Due
- A man you owe for a foul, put back as soon as you have one.
- Break
- The first stroke of a board, into the pack.
- Base line
- The two lines on your side that the striker sits between.
- The hole in each corner.
- Board
- One round of the game, from the break until a side clears its colour.
Every rule on this page is the one the app plays by. Change any of them on the game's own page before you start.