The goal of the game, simple and straightforward
Get your discs to land in the hole at the centre and, if they don't go in, at least get them as close to the centre as possible..
Meanwhile, you have to knock your rival's discs as far from the centre of the board as possible — even off it if you can.
If you've ever played marbles, bottle-cap games or pétanque, you basically already know how to play Crokinole. It's a game of skill and aim — a flicking game.
The crokinole board
Points increase the closer you get to the centre; the centre hole scores the maximum: 20 points.
There are 8 posts around the inner ring to make it harder to reach that ring and the centre.
The board is divided into four quadrants.
Players may only shoot from their own quadrant from the outermost ring — the shooting line.
Starting to play
2 players: sit in opposite quadrants; each player gets 12 discs of their colour.
4 players: split into two teams, sitting opposite each other; each player starts with 6 discs.
The starting player is chosen by draw, and turns follow clockwise.
The shoot
You flick the disc with one finger only, aiming at the centre hole and/or your rival's discs, trying to make valid shoots (see below)
Only your shooting hand and arm may touch the board or table while you shoot.
Once your hand is in shooting position and the disc leaves your finger, the shot counts and can't be redone.
You can't place your shooting disc on the board until it's your turn — so be patient! Discs not in play must stay off the board.
Before shooting, you must wait until all discs from the previous turn have come to a stop.
Neither the board, the table nor the chair may be moved once the game has started.This includes not tilting the chair.
Discs that land in the centre (20 points) are taken off the board and placed where everyone can see them until the end of the round.
When every player has thrown all their discs, the round ends, and all discs left on the board — including the 20s — are counted before anything is moved.
The first player/team to reach 100 points usually after several rounds, wins (see Scoring). .
The one cheek rule: when you shoot, at least at least part of your backside must be in contact with your chair. No part of your body except your feet may touch the floor. You can't brace yourself on anything else to shoot — which sounds silly, but gets tricky if you want to shoot from the side opposite your "good" hand: you start contorting yourself to line up the shot without falling off… though you can always shoot with your "bad" hand.
Correct shots
Every shot is taken from your quadrant, touching the outer ring the shooting line.
The disc may cross that line as long as it's touching it and lying flat; see the diagram:
Positions ‘A’, ‘B and ‘C’ are valid for shooting, ‘C’ is valid because the disc touches the quadrant line from outside.
Positions D and E are invalid...: you can´t shoot from there.
Valid shoots
If there are NO rival discs:
If there are NO rival discs: this is called a free shot, and the player must"play for the centre."”:
At the end of that shot, at least one of the player's discs must remain inside the 15-point ring or in the centre hole.
If a disc only touches the 15 line, it doesn't count as inside the centre ring — it goes to the ditch and doesn't score.
You can achieve this with a direct shot or by hitting your own discs already in play (carom).
If no disc ends up inside the centre ring and you touched your own other discs, all of them go to the ditch.
If there ARE rival discs:
If there ARE rival discs: fichas del rival en juegothings get trickier.
You must shoot your disc to hit at least one rival disc and remain on the board; if you don't hit any opponent's disc, your disc and every other disc of your colour that got hit are sent to the ditch and don't score.
Games turn into a back-and-forth where you're forced to mess with your opponent, trading hits.
Discs that end up touching the shooting line are considered out of play and must go to the ditch.
The hit can be indirect, by first striking a post or any of your own discs in play (carom rule).
Carom rule (indirect hits): you can hit an opponent's discs without hitting them directly, by hitting one of your own discs so that it hits a rival one. The order of the hits doesn't matter.
Damage rule:a disc that at any point leaves the playing line is officially out and stays in the ditch until the end of the round, even if it bounces back onto the board.
But any disc on the board that the rebounding disc moved stays in its new position — and if it lands a 20, that 20 counts.
Spinning-disc rule:if a disc touches or crosses the outer line after being hit by a rival's disc, but doesn't leave the raised playing surface and comes back under its own momentum to end up inside the line, it's still considered in play and stays on the board to score.
A disc resting on the edge of the centre hole, or half-tipped into it, is not worth 20 points o medio volcada no vale 20 puntosIf it stays there until the end of the round, it's only worth 15. During the round, you can shoot at that disc to try to knock it in. Only discs completely inside the hole go into the 20-point tray and count as 20
20 points for the opponent:An unlucky shot can knock a rival disc into the centre hole. In that case, the shot is valid and the 20 points go to the opponent.
Does it touch the line or not? If it's hard to tell whether a disc touches a line, look underneath it. If you can see clean board between the edge of the disc and the line, the disc isn't touching it.
Scoring
Scoring happens once every disc in a round has been thrown.
The player/team adds up every disc left on the board, including discs in the 20-point tray. Each disc counts only once.
The player/team with the most points wins the round; play usually continues until one team reaches 100 points.
20 points: each disc in the 20-point tray cada ficha del recipiente de 20.
15 points: discs inside the post line Las fichas dentro de la línea de los pivotes.
10 points: discs outside the posts, in the second ring Las que están fuera de los pivotes en el segundo anillo.
5 points: discs in the outer ring
0 points: discs in the ditch, and discs touching the shooting line after the last shot
Discs touching a dividing line count at the lower value.