ManyCarrom
A lacquered board, a heavy striker and nineteen coins. Play the computer, a friend on the same phone, or practise on your own.
Slide the striker along your line · pull back from it to aim · let go to strike
How to play
- Place the striker. It must sit on your base line, the pair of lines nearest you, anywhere between the two red circles. Drag it sideways with a finger or the mouse, or use the slider under the board. A red ring means it is sitting on a coin and has to be moved.
- Aim. Press on the striker and pull back, away from where you want it to go, like a catapult. The white line shows where it will travel and the outline where it will meet the first coin; with the full guide a gold line shows which way that coin will go.
- Set the power. The further you pull, the harder the strike. The ring round the striker fills and turns from green to red. A soft touch is often all it takes.
- Let go. The striker flies. If one of your coins goes in, you strike again. To cancel instead, bring your finger back to the striker before letting go.
You can also press anywhere else on the board and pull: the shot goes the opposite way to your pull, which lets you aim with a long, steady drag. On a keyboard, ← and → slide the striker, Q and E turn the aim, W and S change the power, Shift makes each step finer and Space strikes.
The rules used here
Each player owns one colour. Whoever strikes first plays white, and the first strike of a board is the break. You keep striking for as long as you pocket a coin of your own colour; a strike that pockets none of yours passes the turn. A coin of the other colour that goes in stays in, and counts for the other player.
The queen. The red coin can be pocketed by either player at any time, but she only counts once she is covered: you must also pocket one of your own coins, in the same strike or in the very next one. If you do not, she goes back to the centre.
Fouls. If the striker goes into a pocket your turn ends, any of your own coins pocketed in that strike come back, and one coin you pocketed earlier comes back as a penalty — or, if you have none yet, you owe one, taken from the next coin you pocket. A queen waiting to be covered goes back too.
The last coin. Your ninth coin may not go in before the queen is covered, and only you may pocket your own last coin. Either way, that coin comes back to the centre and the turn passes.
Points. Every coin of your colour that is in scores you 1 point, whoever pocketed it, and covering the queen scores 3, so a board is worth up to 12. The big number by each name is the points on this board and goes up the moment a coin drops; a coin that has to come back takes its point with it.
Winning a board. The board ends when a player has pocketed all nine of their coins with the queen covered. Both players keep the points they made, and the winner adds a board to their count. The total under each score and the boards won add up until you press New game, and the break passes to the other player each board.
These follow the International Carrom Federation's rules for a singles board, simplified a little: there are no time limits, no thumbing, a coin cannot leave the board, the queen may be pocketed before your first coin, a coin that comes back is set on the centre circle, or as close to it as there is room, and points are a simple running count of coins in rather than the federation's board score (which gives the winner one point for each coin the loser has left).
The three ways to play
| Mode | Who strikes | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| vs Computer | You from the bottom, the computer from the top | A full game against an opponent who plans like a person and misses like one. Easy misses by several degrees; Hard rarely misses at all. |
| 2 players | Each player from the bottom in turn — the board turns round | Two people sharing one phone, tablet or laptop, passing it across the table. |
| Practice | You, every strike | Learning angles. Every coin counts, there is no turn to lose, and the count shows how many strikes you needed to clear the board. |
How the computer chooses a shot
It looks for straight cuts: for each of its own coins (and the queen, if she is free) and each pocket, it works out where the striker must touch the coin to send it at the pocket, and from which places along its base line that point can be reached without another coin in the way. It drops cuts that are too thin, plays the most promising ones out on a copy of the board with the same physics you see, and keeps the one that pockets most of its own coins without fouling. Then it adds a small human wobble to the aim and power: a few degrees on Easy, about one and a half on Medium, under half a degree on Hard. That is why it sometimes misses an easy shot, just as people do.
The board
The board is drawn to the International Carrom Federation's measurements: a 74 cm square playing surface, pockets 4.45 cm across, base lines 47 cm long with the striker sitting between two lines 3.18 cm apart, coins about 3.1 cm across, and a striker 4.13 cm across and about three times as heavy as a coin. Coins slide rather than roll, lose a little speed to the powdered surface all the time, bounce off each other almost without loss and off the frame with about two thirds of their speed. The diagonal arrows point at the pockets; the centre circle is where the coins are arranged, with the queen on the red spot and the white coins forming a Y.
Tips
- Aim at the ghost, not the coin. To send a coin into a pocket, the striker must hit the side of the coin facing away from the pocket. Line the outline up so the gold line runs into the hole.
- Less power than you think. A coin near a pocket needs only a nudge. Hard strikes scatter everything, including the striker into a pocket.
- Use the frame. For a coin behind your base line or hidden behind others, bounce the striker off the side; the full guide shows the first bounce.
- Plan the queen. Pocket her when one of your coins is sitting by a pocket, so the cover is easy.
Questions
The striker will not shoot.
It is probably sitting on a coin — the ring round it turns red. Slide it along the line until the ring is white. A very short pull is also ignored, so that a tap does not shoot by mistake.
Can I shoot backwards?
No. As on a real board you strike forwards from your line; the aim stops just short of sideways. To reach a coin behind your line, bounce off the frame.
Why is there no sound?
Browsers stay silent until the page has been touched; the first tap or click turns the sound on. Check the Sound box and that the phone is not on silent. The clicks are made by the page itself, not recordings.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. On a narrow screen the camera looks more from above so the far pockets stay large. The full-screen button in the corner of the board gives it the most room.
Is anything saved or uploaded?
Only your choices (mode, level, guide, sound), the running points and your best practice count are kept in this browser, so they are there next time. Nothing is sent anywhere and there is no account.
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