04 How to play a board
Carrom men start racked in the center circle, the Queen at their heart. Players alternate turns, flicking the striker from their own baseline.
Your objective
Pocket all of the carrom men in your color, and pocket-and-cover the Queen. A turn stays with you as long as you keep pocketing your own coins — miss, and it passes to your opponent.
Covering the Queen
You may pocket the Queen at any point, but you must cover her by pocketing one of your own coins on the very next stroke. Fail to cover, and the Queen is returned to the center for play to continue.
Fouls
- Pocketing the striker is always a foul — one of your own coins goes back onto the table (clawed back from your score if you have none left to play), and any points that stroke would have earned are forfeited.
- Pocketing an opponent's coin is also a foul — any of your own coins pocketed in that same stroke return to the table uncredited. The opponent's coin still stays pocketed, though: it's simply credited to whichever side actually plays that color.
- A foul on the very stroke that pots — or was meant to cover — the Queen forfeits her outright; she bounces back to the center rather than getting another chance.
Doubles (2v2)
The seat directly opposite you is your partner — North & South play as one team, East & West as the other; the two seats beside you are opponents. Each side of the board shows a panel with both team names so every seat can see who's who.
Winning the board
The moment a side clears its coins, the board resolves by these rules — order matters:
- Cleared, Queen secured. You've pocketed all your coins and already covered the Queen — you win the board.
- Cleared, Queen still in play. You've pocketed all your coins but the Queen is still on the table, unclaimed — the board goes to the other side.
- Cleared by the opponent's foul. If your last coin only reached zero because the other side fouled one of yours in, with the Queen still unclaimed, the board is awarded to you instead of penalizing you for it.
- Queen with nothing of your own. Pocketing the Queen when you haven't pocketed a single one of your own coins is an instant loss.
Rare edge cases: if the table empties completely with nothing left to pot, whoever secured the Queen wins the board (otherwise it's a tie); if both sides clear their very last coin on the same stroke, the higher score wins the board (otherwise, again, a tie).