What is “19-coin carrom”?
“19-coin carrom” is a new single-player format for playing the game of carrom, as opposed to traditional carrom, which is played as either a 2-player game (singles) or a 4-player game (doubles). In traditional carrom, one player plays whites and the other player plays blacks, and the queen is a common coin. In 19-coin carrom, there is only one player, and that one player plays all the coins on the board (9 whites + 9 blacks + 1 queen = 19 coins). Hence the term “19-coin carrom”. From this perspective, one might call traditional carrom “10-coin carrom”, as a player attempts to pocket 10 coins (9 whites or 9 blacks, plus 1 queen). This way of differentiating various formats of playing a game, based on the number of target pieces to be pocketed by a player, is common in other sports such as billiards (8-ball pool vs. 9-ball pool).
How to play “19-coin carrom”?
19-coin carrom is quite similar to traditional carrom, except for a few key differences. Here is how it works:
- A single player sits on the board, and performs a break.
- Coins are racked up in the exact same way as traditional carrom.
- Breaks can be done forward or backward.
- Then the player proceeds to pocket all the coins on the board, in any sequence - black or white doesn’t matter.
- The player keeps playing until all the coins are pocketed, merely keeping track of the number of strokes taken.
- Scoring is determined by how many strokes the player takes to clear the board.
- For eg, if a player pockets exactly one coin in the break, and then successfully pockets a coin in every stroke thereafter until he clears the entire board, his board score would be 19.
- Break is counted as a stroke too.
- Stroke count increases whether or not a coin is pocketed in a stroke.
- A set is played for 5 such boards, and the average count is the final set score.
- For example, a set might look like {21, 24, 23, 31, 25}. The final set score is the average of these 5 scores, which is 24.8 in this case.
- In this example, the player took 21 strokes to clear the 1st board, 24 strokes for the 2nd board, and so on.
- All other rules of traditional carrom apply, such as -
- Queen cannot be the first or last coin to be pocketed.
- Queen must be covered (or it comes back in the center).
- Standard penalties for dues and fouls apply.
- Exception: If the last possible cover is pocketed before the queen, it should be placed back on the board, similar to a due coin (as close to the center as possible, without making a shot for the queen).
What are the benefits of 19-coin carrom?
There are two main benefits of this new format:
- Until now, playing a game of carrom required a minimum of 2 players. This new format allows carrom to be played as a single-player game. In this day and age of coronavirus and self-isolation, playing carrom is an ideal activity to occupy oneself in a productive way. 19-coin carrom brings structure to practicing carrom in a solo environment, and allows players to compete with others remotely (see the next section on league for competitive play). NOTE: This has been a long standing need in the world of carrom. As a result, though BACA has independently developed this new 19-coin format, similar formats have been parallelly devised by others all over the world, such as the “Korean test system”, which is used in the “Corona carrom tournament” in Europe.
- Until now, there was no easy way to objectively “measure” a player’s skill level in carrom. The scoring system used in 19-coin carrom opens up a new world of possibility to address this gap. Several new interesting metrics can be tracked, such as average number of strokes per board, minimum & maximum number of strokes per board, and the variance between the two, which could help pinpoint a player’s strong and weak areas. It can also help track the progression of a player’s skill level over time, or assess a player’s form before a tournament.