Crokinole is usually played with two or four people, however it can be played with other numbers.
A Crokinole board consists of three concentric circles with a gutter or ditch around the outer rim. The central circle has a target hole at the middle and eight posts (guard pegs) around the outside. A traditional Crokinole board has an octagonal shape.
You can buy Crokinole board from a number of manufacturers. These range from low end boards that are little more than functional to high qualty pieces that are almost works of art.
How To Play Crokinole
There are a huge number of major and minor variations of the rules of Crokinole, here is one version.Each player has a number of coloured discs - two players have 12 each, four players six each. Each player on their turn places a disc so that it touches the shooting line (the perimeter of the outer circle) and flicks it towards either the target hole at the centre of the board or an enemy piece. Note that players must play from where they are seated, they aren't allowed to move round to the other side of the board for a better shot!
If there are no enemy pieces on the board, a player aims at the central hole. A piece entering the target hole is removed from play and worth 20 points at the end of the game.
If there are enemy pieces on the board then the player must attempt to hit one or more of these. If no enemy piece is hit then the shot is "fouled" - even if it lands in the central hole. A fouled piece is removed from the board and will score no points, play then moves on.
Some players have a "no hiding" rule saying that if there are no enemy pieces on the board your shot must either land in the target hole or within the central ring. This prevents a player "hiding" their piece on their own side of the board and forcing the opponent to foul.
Pieces that are knocked off the board into the gutter are removed from play and will score no points. Pieces knocked into the target hole are removed and will score 20. All pieces guttered or holed are so treated, whether belonging to the shooter or to their opponent.
The round ends when all players have used all of their pieces. Each piece that reached the central target scores 20, other pieces score 15, 10 or 5 depending on which circle they ended up in. A game of Crokinole either consists of a pre-determined number of rounds with the scores being totalled between rounds or of playing to a certain total score.
Strategy is obviously a combination of getting your pieces into the central target hole whilst knocking the enemy pieces off of the board and into the gutter. It is usually better to concentrate on guttering the opponent if possible, especially if you can manage to eliminate more than one piece with a single shot.