Most beginners play carrom one shot at a time: find a coin, hit it, hope. Experienced players tend to play it differently. They think about the shot after the next shot. This guide gives six habits that follow directly from the rules, and they work whether you play on a real board or in the browser.
Rules differ a little between clubs and countries. The rules in this article are the ones used in Carrom by 22Softwares, the free game we build, so you can try each idea there.
1. Keep your turn: pot your own coin, and leave the next one ready
In carrom, a pot of your own coin lets you shoot again. A pot of your opponent’s coin does not: the coin stays down, it counts for them, and your turn ends. So the winning pattern is a run of pots. Each stroke should pot a coin and leave another coin of yours close to a pocket with a clear line, so the next stroke is easy.
The mistake to avoid is a pot that leaves nothing behind: you pot one coin and every remaining coin of yours is blocked or far from a pocket, so your run ends after one stroke. Before every shot, look at where the other coins will be after it, and which coin you want to shoot at next. You choose a fresh spot on your baseline for each stroke.
2. Do not leave their coins near the pockets
A coin of theirs next to a pocket is an easy pot that keeps their run going, so try not to leave one there when your turn is about to end. A coin of yours next to a pocket is safe to leave: if your opponent pots it, it counts for you and their turn ends. Your own coins near pockets are worth most when you are sure you keep the turn.
3. Plan the queen before you pot it
The queen is the most valuable piece, and also the one that most often goes wrong. After you pot it you must cover it on your very next stroke by potting one of your own coins. If you do not, the queen returns to the centre of the board. A coin potted in the same stroke as the queen does not cover it. The one exception is your ninth coin: if the queen and your last coin go down together, it counts. The full rule is explained in our queen cover guide.
The practical advice: go for the queen when you already have a safe own coin lined up for the cover. Potting the queen with nothing ready is how you hand it back.
4. Avoid fouls: know what they cost
A foul costs more than a missed shot. The heavy foul is the striker leaving the board: your turn ends, every coin you potted with that stroke is voided, and one of your already-potted coins, if you have any, is returned to the board. In our physics checks the cushions keep the striker on the board, so you will rarely see it. A stroke that touches nothing does not cost you coins, it only passes the turn.
The more common cost of a hard stroke is not a foul at all: a coin that arrives too fast rattles out of the pocket, and a fast striker scatters pieces you may want to leave where they are. Hit as softly as the shot allows. A gentle shot that pots is worth more than a fast shot that misses.
5. Roll the coin in, do not blast it
Carrom pockets are tight. In Carrom by 22Softwares the pocket has a radius of 2.35 cm and a coin has a radius of 2.07 cm, so a coin barely fits. On a 74 cm board, with the coins and striker scaled up 1.3 times from the real tournament sizes so they are easy to see on a phone, this gives a very small margin.
A coin hit straight at the pocket at full power can rattle against the edge and bounce back out. A coin must be moving slowly enough to drop. So aim to roll the coin into the pocket, using a medium or soft stroke, rather than blasting it.
6. Know what the first stroke does
The first stroke of a board usually hits the centre cluster. A stroke that pots one of your coins keeps your turn; one that pots nothing passes it, so the opponent starts from whatever the cluster looks like.
What the computer players do, in numbers
We measured our own bots on a fixed set of mid-game Classic test positions, in simulation. These are not real matches and not player statistics. In those positions, the share of strokes that pot one of the bot’s own coins is 66 percent on Easy, 81 percent on Medium, 90 percent on Hard and 95 percent on Expert. When an easy pot was available (an own coin within 12 cm of a pocket, with a clear line), Easy missed it 29 percent of the time, Medium 17 percent, Hard 7 percent and Expert 4 percent. The trend is the lesson: stronger bots potted their own coins more often, and missed fewer easy ones.
A practice routine
- Play three boards against the Easy bot and count how many strokes in a row you can pot your own coins.
- Before each shot, say out loud which coin you will shoot at next.
- Play one board where you may only hit softly. Notice how many fouls disappear.
- Practise the queen: go for it only when you have a cover ready.
- Move up to the next bot level when you win most boards.
Facts checked with the Carrom by 22Softwares team against the game’s rules engine.