Crokinole rules refresher

Read the refresher

You're trying to be the first player or partnership to reach 100 points. You do it by flicking your discs toward the center of the board, knocking your opponents' discs off, and outscoring the other side round after round.

For setup, two players each take twelve wooden discs of their own color. With four players, you play in two partnerships, and partners sit opposite each other. Each partnership gets twelve discs of one color, split six to each player. Picture the board from the center out. The twenty hole is in the middle, surrounded by a ring of posts, also called pegs. Inside the posts is the fifteen zone, the next ring out is the ten zone, and the outer ring is the five zone, running out to the starting line, the largest circle. Beyond that is the lower rim called the ditch, where discs removed from play go. The board is split into quadrants, and you shoot from your own. Choose the first shooter at random, and play always goes clockwise.

The game is played in rounds. On your turn you shoot a single disc, then play passes clockwise to the next shooter. Discs stay wherever they come to rest unless a rule sends them off the board. Nothing is scored during the round. At the end of the round both sides add up their points, and only the side with more points scores, gaining the difference. If nobody has reached 100 yet, the next round is started by the person sitting to the left of the lead shooter.

To shoot, place one of your discs so it touches the starting line, with at least half of it inside your quadrant. Then flick it. Pushing the disc is not allowed. Once the game starts, the board may not be moved. You can't move your chair or lift yourself out of it. That's the one cheek rule: one cheek always stays on the seat. And nobody may touch the board unless it's their turn to shoot.

If there are no opponent's discs on the board when you shoot, aim for the twenty hole. A disc that lands completely in the hole is taken out and set aside, and it scores at the end of the round. If your disc misses the hole but ends up in the fifteen zone, or at least touching the fifteen zone line, it stays on the board. But if it stops in the ten or five zone, it's removed from the board. That stops players from hiding discs behind the posts.

If there is at least one opponent's disc on the board, you must try to hit one of them. The hit can be direct, a ricochet off a post or another disc, or you can knock one of your own discs into an opponent's disc. If you fail to hit an opponent's disc, the disc you shot goes in the ditch. On top of that, any of your own or your partner's discs that you hit on that failed shot also go in the ditch.

A few more rules come up often. After every shot, any disc touching the starting line goes in the ditch. A disc that is leaning into the twenty hole, or balanced so part of it hangs over the hole, stays where it is. It only comes out if it gets knocked into the hole. And a disc that leaves the board, hits anything off the main board, and bounces back on goes in the ditch. Any discs it touched stay where they ended up.

At the end of each round, each player or partnership counts their discs still on the board. Discs are worth fifteen points in the fifteen zone, ten in the ten zone, and five in the five zone. A disc touching a scoring line counts as the lower of the two values. Add twenty points for each twenty hole disc you set aside. Then subtract the smaller total from the larger, and the side with the larger total scores the difference. For example, if one side has 60 and the other has 35, the first side scores 25 and the other scores nothing. The first player or partnership to reach 100 points wins.

A turn, played out

You play black against white, and you lead 70 to 55. Mid round, you have 3 discs left, white has 2. On the board, your one disc sits in the fifteen zone. White has one in the ten zone, tucked behind a post, and one in the five zone. Because white discs are on the board, you must hit one. You set a disc touching the starting line, over half in your quadrant, one cheek down, and flick. You skip the hidden disc and hit the five zone one squarely. White's disc skids back until it touches the starting line, so after the shot it goes in the ditch. Your shooter stops in the ten zone and stays, because you hit a white disc. On the board now, you hold 25 against white's 10. Nothing scores until the round ends, and white shoots next.