Crokinole

How to play Crokinole

1. Twelve discs each. Orange shoots from the bottom quarter of the board and Purple from the top quarter. Each player shoots 12 discs a round, taking turns.
2. Shoot from your line. Every shot starts touching the outer line of your own quarter. Choose where along the line, aim and flick.
3. Hit if you can. If your rival has any discs on the board, your shot must hit one of them.
4. No hiding. If your rival has no discs on the board, your disc must end up touching or inside the 15 line, the ring of pegs.
5. Sink a 20. A disc that drops into the hole in the middle comes off at once and scores 20.
6. Count the round. When all 24 discs have been shot, both players add up their points. Only the player with more scores, and only the difference. The first to 100 points wins (or 50, if you choose the shorter game).

The crokinole board

A tournament crokinole board has a round playing surface about 26 inches across, and this game's board is drawn to those sizes. From the middle outwards:

• The 20 hole, just a little wider than a disc. A disc only drops in when it slides over the middle of the hole slowly enough.
• The 15 zone, inside the ring of eight pegs. The pegs are small bumper posts standing on the 15 line, and discs bounce off them.
• The 10 zone, out to the middle line.
• The 5 zone, out to the outer line. Four short lines divide this zone into quarters, one for each seat at the board. You shoot from your own quarter, and on this board yours is tinted in your colour.
• The ditch, round the edge, where discs that are knocked off end up for the rest of the round.

Shooting rules

Must hit. When your rival has discs in play, your shot must touch at least one of them, either directly or by knocking one of your own discs into it. Bouncing off a peg on the way is fine. The rival discs you need to hit glow yellow before your shot.

No hiding. On an open board, with none of your rival's discs in play, your shot disc must end touching or inside the 15 line, or a disc it moved must. A 20 counts. This stops players from tucking their first discs far out of reach. The 15 line glows yellow when the rule applies.

A foul is a shot that breaks either rule. Your shot disc comes off, together with every disc it moved, and any 20 it made doesn't count.

Out of play. A disc that touches or crosses the outer line is out of play and goes into the ditch, and so does a disc that slides off the board. A shot that never gets clear of the outer line is out too, so flick hard enough to reach the 5 zone.

Scoring

A disc that touches a line scores the lower of the two zones. So a disc lying across the 15 line scores 10, and one touching the middle line scores 5.

Cancellation scoring. At the end of a round, each player adds up their discs on the board and their 20s. The player with more points scores the difference, and the other player scores nothing. If you have 65 and your rival has 40, you score 25. If you both have the same, nobody scores. The player who shot first in one round shoots second in the next. The first player to reach 100 points, or 50 in the shorter game, wins.

Club and tournament rules vary a little. The National Crokinole Association's 2026 rules, for example, give each player 8 discs in singles and play games of four rounds, with 2 points for winning a round and 1 point each for a tie. This game keeps the common casual rules: 12 discs each and the difference to 100.

Controls

• Choose your spot: press on your disc and slide it along the outer line. Arrows either side of it remind you on your first shot.
• Aim and flick: pull back, away from where you want the disc to go, then let go. You can pull from your disc or from anywhere on the board. The further you pull, the harder the flick: the dots show the direction, and the ring round the disc fills with power. Let go with almost no pull to cancel.
• Keyboard: A and D (or Q and E) slide your disc along the line, ← and → aim, ↑ and ↓ set the power, hold Shift for small steps, and Space or Enter flicks.

With 2 Players, take turns on the same device. Orange shoots from the bottom of the screen and Purple from the top, so laying a phone or tablet flat between you works like sitting across a real board. The hint for the top player faces them.

Computer levels

The computer plays by the same rules and sees the same board you do. Before each shot it tries shots out on a copy of the board with the same physics as the game: shots at the 20, shots at your discs and, on the higher levels, discs tucked in behind the pegs. It prefers shots that still work if its hand slips a little, then flicks with a hand that isn't perfectly steady.

Tips to win

• Go for the 20 on an open board. From the middle of your line, a straight shot at the hole passes between two pegs. A firm, straight flick drops in more often than a timid one.
• Hit and stay. When you take out a rival disc, try to keep your own disc on the board. A softer, full hit often stops your disc where theirs was.
• Hide behind the pegs. A disc tucked behind a peg is hard to see from your rival's line. If they can't hit any of your discs, they foul and lose their shot.
• Use your own discs. Knocking one of your discs into a rival disc counts as a hit, and it can reach discs you can't see.
• Watch the line. A hard takeout can send your own disc over the outer line too. Leaving one disc safely on the board is often worth more than knocking two off.
• Save something for the end. The last shot of a round, called the hammer, can't be answered. Keep track of who shoots last.

About Crokinole

Crokinole has been played in Ontario since the 1870s and is possibly of Canadian origin. The earliest known board was made in 1876 by Eckhardt Wettlaufer in Perth County, Ontario, reportedly as a birthday present for his son, and it's now in the collection of Joseph Schneider Haus in Kitchener. The name is generally thought to come from croquignole, an old French word for a flick of the finger. Since 1999 the World Crokinole Championship has been held every June in Tavistock, Ontario, Wettlaufer's home town, and players come from across Canada, the United States and further afield.

Questions

Updated 10 November 2026