How to Play Carrom: the Rules of Carrom Board Game

Do you know you can play a game similar to the pool right at home without requiring a pool table? If you love games like billiards or pool, the Carrom board game will delight you.

This game is known for centuries but its origin is unclear. Some think that India is a motherland of Carrom while Indians consider it to be the invention of the UK. In any case, Carrom and games similar to it are present in various countries from Indonesia to Mexico and from Denmark to Sri Lanka.

The Objective of Carrom

What is the main goal of Carrom? It is to get as many points for successful strikes as possible. The players need to sink all their stones of a certain color in the holes in the corners of the Carrom board. Just like you strike balls in pockets in the pool. Yet, you have no cue stick and you can use only your fingers for strikes.

“In Carrom, it’s not strength that wins, it’s precision. Every click is a choice: play hard or wait for the right moment.”

The Game’s Setup

Carrom board game rules start with proper setup. The game is played by 2 players who have 18 chips also called carrom-mans. The central chip is of red color and it is called the queen.

The board for Carrom is a special wooden board with marks in its centers. The main requirements for the Carrom board are as follows:

• Carrom board tournament size is 72×72 cm or 29×29 inches.
• The board to play Carrom has upstands which should be no less than 1.61 cm in height to prevent the striker from going out of the field.
• The board has 4 holes (pockets) in its corners with the diameter of each hole 4.45 cm.
• The board has special marks on it with a round place in the center where all the stones are established before the game starts. There are also special basic lines, arrows and additional circles on each part of the board.

Besides the board, players need 19 chips to play Carrom. There are 9 white stones, 9 black stones, and a Queen, a stone of red color which is situated in the center of the desk.

Other stones are placed around the Queen in 2 circles with repeating black-white directions. So, the first circle contains 6 stones (3 white and 3 black) and the second circle contains 12 chips (6 white and 6 black).

Carrom rules suppose the use of a special stone, a striker to sink the chips. The striker is a bigger chip of increased weight which you can push with your fingers.

Exploring Carrom Board Game Rules

Now let’s clarify the rules of the Carrom game step by step.

1. All chips are set on the board to form the central circle.
2. The players decide who will be the first. For this, one player picks a white chip and hides it in his hands. While the chip is in one hand, another remains empty. Another player tries to guess which hand has a hidden chip. If he succeeds, he takes white chips and starts the game. If not, he picks black chips and his turn is second.
3. The player who starts the game possesses the striker near the upside of the board closer to him. Then he pushes the striker to break the circle of chips.

If he manages to sink the white chip in any hole, he takes the striker back to the upside and continues his turn.

The turn ends with the first unsuccessful strike (which means no white chips are sunk or a striker goes out of the board).

4. Then the turn goes to the second player who picks the striker to his side of the board and tries to sink black chips. For each stone of a proper color a player sinks he gets 1 point. Sunk chips are removed from the board.
5. At any time, players can try to sink the Queen. This chip is worth 3 points. Yet, you get them only if you sink the Queen and the next strike is successful too. If you sink the Queen but fail to sink another chip during this turn, you do not get 3 points and the Queen returns to the board.
6. It is not allowed to sink a striker chip or to pull it out of the board. This is called ‘Foul’ and for such action, a player loses 1 point while his opponent can take one of his chips again on the board.

The Carrom board game rules suppose the game to run until one of the players succeeds in sinking all his chips.

Scoring the Game

The principle of scoring in Carrom includes the following:

1. Each player gets 1 point for the stone of their color sunk into a hole.
2. If a player manages to sink a queen, he gets 3 points but only in the case his next shot is successful and one of his stones is sunk. If not, the queen returns to the playfield.
3. If a player sinks a striker instead of a stone, he misses 1 point and their opponent can return 1 stone to any place on the board (so to increase chances of getting an extra point for it).
   So, after all the stones of any color are sunk, the results are calculated and the player who gets more points wins the game.

Bottom Line

Once you learn the Carrom rules, you can make it your must-try board game. Due to its simplicity, this game offers extremely high levels of fun, and playing it is a task even for a kid. Yet, when you practice a bit, you can become a true king of Carrom and amaze your friends with your shooting skills.

Conclusion

We welcome you to explore more board games in our blog and have fun playing them with your friends or family. Stay tuned and look for more articles about the best board games from all over the world.