Carrom

Setup

A square board with a pocket cut into each of the four corners. Nineteen discs sit in a rosette in the middle: nine light men, nine dark men, and one red queen at the very centre.

Two players take opposite sides of the board, one playing the light men and one the dark. Four players take a side each and play in partnerships — you and the person facing you share a colour, share the count, and win or lose together.

Each player has a striker, a larger and heavier disc, which is slid along their own baseline and flicked. The striker is never a target and never counts for anybody; it is only the thing you hit with.

Who breaks is drawn at random rather than given to whoever made the room. Nothing is hidden — every disc is on the table in front of everyone, which is what makes this the game you can pass round one phone.

How to play

On your turn you place the striker anywhere along your own baseline, aim, and flick. The striker travels, hits what it hits, and everything settles; whatever went down a pocket during that is the result of the shot.

Pocket one of your OWN men and you shoot again, from the same baseline. Keep pocketing and keep shooting — a good break followed by three clean pots is an entire game's lead taken in one turn.

Pocket nothing, or pocket only your opponent's men, and the turn passes to the next player.

An opponent's man that you pocket counts for THEM. It does not come back and it is not a foul — it is simply a gift, and it is the most common way a hard shot goes wrong.

Pocketing the striker itself is a foul. One of the men you have already pocketed is put back on the board near the centre and your turn ends, even if the same shot sank one of your own — unless that shot has already sent the queen back to the centre, in which case her return is the whole penalty.

Discs rebound off the rails and off each other, so a shot that cannot be made straight can often be made off a cushion. The board is slippery and a full-power striker crosses it and comes back.

Controls

Drag along your baseline to slide the striker to where you want it. The baseline is the short line in front of your seat, and the striker may sit anywhere on it.

Drag out from the striker to aim and to set the power. The direction you drag is the direction it goes, and the further you drag the harder it is hit — the aim line and the power are drawn under your finger as you pull.

Lift your finger to shoot. Nothing is sent until you release, so you can pull, look, and change your mind as many times as you like; the turn clock is two minutes, which is far longer than any shot needs.

Once the striker is away the shot belongs to our servers. What you watch is a replay of the result they computed, which is why both players see the identical break rather than two boards that drift apart.

With Reduce Motion switched on in your phone's accessibility settings, the discs arrive where they finished without the travel, and the result is exactly the same.

The board does not mirror in Arabic. Your baseline is at the bottom of your screen in both languages, and the pockets are in the same four corners for everybody at the table.

Scoring

Inside a board the score is simply men pocketed — nine to win. There are no points for the queen beyond what she is worth as a rule, and no running tally between boards.

The queen is the red disc, and she cannot just be taken. Pocket her and you shoot again; cover her by pocketing one of your own men — on that same shot or on the next one — and she is yours for good. Fail to cover her on the next shot and she goes back to the centre of the board and your turn ends.

You cannot finish while the queen is still unclaimed. A side that pockets its ninth man with the queen loose puts that man straight back and plays on — so the queen is not decoration, she is the thing you have to solve before you can win.

On your profile a win pays 22 points, a draw 7 and a loss 3 — above the short abstracts and below Domino's match to 100, priced for a board that runs eight to twelve minutes.

Carrom is rated and moves the same ladder as chess: it is turn-based and hides nothing, so a result between two people says something real. Rating only moves in an online match between exactly two people, so a four-handed partnership game pays both partners full points and stats and leaves everyone's rating alone.

Practice against the bot and games with everyone on one phone score nothing at all. A turn left unplayed for two minutes is forfeited to the other side.

Winning

You win the board by pocketing all nine of your men once the queen is settled — covered by EITHER side. Sink your ninth while she is still loose and that man comes straight back out. In a partnership the two of you share one set of nine and one count, so either partner's pot is the pair's pot.

If a board somehow runs on and on — two cautious players pushing the same disc around a corner — it is called after 150 shots and awarded to whichever side has pocketed more of its own men. Level at that point is a draw. In self-play this almost never happens; it is a backstop, not a rule you will meet.

Leaving the match forfeits it. At four seats that costs your partner too: their side loses and the other pair both take the win, exactly as it would at a real table.

A draw is a real result rather than a non-event: it pays both sides points and counts on both records, and between two players who both cover the queen early it is a perfectly ordinary way for a board to end.

Tips

Aim at where a man will GO, not at the man. A disc leaves along the line from the striker's centre through its own, so to send it into a corner you have to strike the opposite face — which usually means aiming at a point beside it rather than at it.

Take the shot that keeps the turn. One safe pot that lets you shoot again is worth more than a spectacular double that hands the board back.

The queen early is worth the risk; the queen late is a trap. You must cover her with one of your own men, and covering is easy while you still have eight on the board and very hard when you have one.

Do not leave your last men parked against a rail. A disc flat against a cushion can only be moved along it, and that is how a board that was won ends up going to the shot cap.

Use the rebound. The striker comes off a rail with most of its speed, so a man sitting in your own half is often easiest to reach by shooting past it and coming back.

In doubles, clear your partner's line rather than taking a marginal pot. You share the nine men, so a shot that opens the board for them is your shot too.