Traditionally speaking, carrom is the strike-and-pocket table board game that has evolved into the recent-world online games. The prominence of this game has already got etched in the hearts and memories of fans. Given its popularity as an indoor game amongst fans, carrom now gets praised on numerous counts. Recently, it has also acquired a lot of online fans. If you are one of them and want to learn more about how to play carrom, spend a few worthy minutes reading this post.
Carrom and Its Humble Roots
The humble and precise roots of carrom are not defined anywhere. But people believe that it has got originated in the 18th century in the Indian subcontinents. The traditional board is evidence that the game was played in the palaces and is a pretty old game. It’s a fantastic family game.
Outlining Its Prime Goal
The prime objective of the carrom game is to strike the carrom men. Players will take their turns and play. The turn consists of one or even more strikes. Players win only if they successfully pocket the pieces of their selected colour. But neither of the players wins as long as the queen isn’t pocketed. To cover the queen, one has to pocket the red-coloured piece (the queen) and immediately pocket another piece (of their colour).
After the queen gets pocked but does not get covered, Queen will be returned to the board. Both players will try covering the Queen besides trying their own game. The players who win & cover the queen will be entitled to get added points as bonus rewards. Here’s a complete outline of how to play carrom effortlessly.
How to Play Carom: Learn More About the Gameplay Here
Talking about the traditional game, the carom board is a square and smooth wooden surface. It consists of 72cm or 74cm in dimension. There are four holes and under them, there are nets to catch each piece.
Two lines are drawn on its table alongside the diagonals. These are the “foul lines”. At its centre, there are two concentric circles. The circle present at its centre is the size of a piece. The prime circle has a diameter 6 times larger than that. You might check circles and the short way from each side of your carom board. There are mainly two straight lines that go parallel with the edge. Around 3.8cm distance should be there. The thin rectangle comprising circles at the ends is the “baseline”.
In general, the game gets played with 9 dark or black and light or white pieces. They are coins. Alongside, there’s the red piece known as the “Queen”. The smooth pieces get made of wood.
Strikers are made of either bone or ivory. These are heavier than coins, though they can be different based on weight. On some boards, potato starch, chalk dust, or any other lubricant gets used for making it smooth. It is a popular practice, but the most prominent lubricant for it is boric acid. Here’s everything to learn about the gameplay:
Preparing for your game
First things first, you require setting up your board & familiarizing yourself with the symbols. Considering the rules, you may proceed seamlessly. Think of the game as the game of billiards. Soon after you learn the significance of the pieces, you must set the board.
To start off, place the queen at the centre. Then, you can follow the circle to place other coins. After you significantly place your coins, now’s the time to decide on who should go first. Players should hold the piece concealed in their hands. When an opponent anticipants it correctly, that person will get the first chance to strike. Also, that player chooses their desired coloured coin.
What should you learn about striking?
When it’s about striking, there are various tricks and rules. As a connoisseur in the game of carrom, you may have learned too much about striking tweaks. But for a beginning, it might become confusing to understand the concept of striking. For this reason, it’s better to go through the following pointers. Spend your worthy time reading the following pointers to understand more about striking:
- For each strike, players must position their striker within the baseline of the board on either of the two circles
- A striker within the baseline must touch both the front and rear lines
- It is quite important to cut the moon with the striker whether it gets placed within the circle or baseline
- The player must flick the striker with one finger in such a way that it crosses its front baseline. Note that it would not be permitted to flick backwards or horizontally
- A piece that gets on or behind the baseline’s front should never get struck by a striker that crossed the frontal baseline.
- The hand or arm of players should not cross diagonal foul lines
The basic thumb’s rule
As a beginner in the carom games, learning the simple commandment is imperative. For this reason, you can get an understanding from the following:
- For the initial turn, a player should always get the allowance for at least three attempts to break
- It doesn’t matter which piece of striker hits first. Even when the striker does not hit the piece, you would not get penalized
- If the striker pockets the queen or any other piece of their own colour, the player must retrieve the striker. That’s how they can take another strike
- If the player fails to pocket the piece and commits a foul, their turn simply gets ended.
The carrom game has become a prominent online game in today’s Internet-centric world. If you want to kill your boredom and get an intriguing experience playing online carrom games, these are what you required learning about how to play carrom. Hopefully, now you can win your game like a pro, if not you can still start learning the game. Here’s wishing you good luck.
Rohan Mathawan
This article is authored by Rohan Mathawan, who is presently working as the Vice President of Media Sales and Operations at Techstory Media. Rohan started his career as an online gaming and technology content writer and has written more than 5000+ articles for reputed brands and companies like Techstory Media, MarketingCrap, and a few other ad agencies in the last 4 years. Rohan loves to read about online gaming during his pastime. His passion to create content about online gaming force him to dive deep into the research of the topic and what comes out is a highly relevant and captivating piece of content that is appreciated by his readers.
