Rules for Carrom or Karom Board Game

Carrom is one of the best games people have enjoyed for many years. If you are interested in learning how to play carrom, it is essential to understand its rules thoroughly. The carrom rules (Karom) dictate how the game is played and what actions are allowed during the gameplay. These rules cover every aspect of the game, from how the board is set up to how points are earned.

To master the carrom game, it is crucial to deeply understand the rules and how they are applied in gameplay. For better understanding, we have divided the rules for Carrom into 4 categories, which are described below.

Carrom Rules: Basic Rules of Karom

Carrom is played between 2 or 4 players. There are 19 tokens at play – 8 black, 8 white color tokens, and one queen. If you are new to the Carrom game, here are the general rules that can come in handy:

• Players can pocket only their chosen color token. If they pocket an opponent’s carrom men, they must return them to the center of the board.
• For every carrommen pocketed, the player gets an extra turn.
• If a player commits a foul, they either lose their turn or have to return one carrom men as a penalty to the board.  
• If the player pockets the carrom striker, it is a foul.
• The player commits a foul if they touch any piece in the Carrom board other than the striker.
• It is a foul if the striker or any other carrommen leaves the board.
• The player can place the penalty carrom men on top of other men within the main circle.
• If the carrom men overlap with another carrom men or land on end, leave them as it is until moved again in the normal course of play.
• If the striker rests under another carrommen, remove the sticker with as little disturbance to the covering carrommen as possible.

Carrom Rules to Start the Game

Here are the carrom rules (Karom rules) to start the game:

• The player who goes first gets three attempts to break the central group of Carrommen.
• The break happens when the striker touches any Carrommen placed in the center of the board.
• They lose their turn if the player attempts to break with an improper stroke or pockets his striker without touching the carrom men.
• If the player cannot break after three attempts, the turn to break is passed to the opponent.

Carrom Rules for Queen

Here are Carrom board game rules to cover the queen:

• To cover the Queen, the player has to pocket one or more carrom men of their own color after pocketing the Queen.
• If the player covers the queen successfully, the player gets another chance to strike.
• A player can only pocket and cover the queen if they have picked at least one carrommen of their color. If the player pockets the Queen first before pocketing any other carrom men, the Queen returns to the center of the board.
• While shooting for the queen, if the player sinks one of their carrom men in the same shot, the queen is automatically covered, no matter which went first.

Carrom Points Rules

Take a look at the carrom rules to earn points in the game:

1. The game consists of 25 points.
2. The value of each carrommen is 1 point, except for Queen.
3. The board winner collects 1 point for each opponent’s tokens left at the finish.
4. The player earns 3 points for successfully pocketing and covering the queen. If the board winner cannot cover the Queen, no one gets 3 points for the Queen. You do not get Queen points after the player’s score reaches 22.