THE GAME – Official Crokinole Rules and Scoring

THE GAME – Official Crokinole Rules and Scoring (www.worldcrokinole.com)

Playing Guidelines

The object of the game is to shoot your disc attempting to knock your opponent’s disc into the ditch or into a lower scoring position.

Discs are to be shot only with a finger. No finger guards may be used. During a shot only the shooting hand and associated arm can come into contact with the board or table. Players can not intentionally move the board, table or chair in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage.

Contestants must initiate all their shots from between their quadrant lines and touching the outer ring. A disc may exceed the quadrant line of the contestant but must remain touching the contestant’s quadrant line.

A shooting disc cannot be placed on the board until it is your turn. All shots must be initiated from a flat position. Once your hand is in a shooting position and the disc leaves your finger, a shot is judged to have taken place. Play progresses clockwise around the board.

A disc that at any time leaves the perimeter of the raised playing surface is deemed to be officially out of bounds and must remain in the ditch until the end of the round.

A disc that stops on the playing surface and is touching the outer line is deemed out of play and must immediately be placed in the ditch.

Neither the board nor the chair of any player may be moved while the game is in progress. This includes no tipping of the chair. When a player is shooting, at least one portion of the posterior (the “one cheek rule”) must be in contact with his/her chair. At no time may any part of the body, except the feet, touch the floor. No other means of support is allowed while taking a shot.

Starting To Play

Players take turns attempting valid shots, shooting one disc per turn, proceeding clockwise around the board. After each turn 20‘s sunk will be removed and placed in a designated area visible to all players for scoring at the end of the round. A round ends when all players have shot the designated number of discs. First shot for each subsequent round will alternate between players/teams.

Before shooting a player must wait until all motion of the discs from the previous turn has ceased.

Your non-played discs are to be kept outside of the board on the corner of the table.

At the end of the round the value of the discs on the board, including 20’s, are totalled before any discs may be moved. ( See Scoring)

A Valid Shot

If any opposing discs are in play at least one of the shooter’s discs must strike an opposing disc, either directly or in combination, by bumping one of his/her discs already in play into an opposing disc.

If there are no opposing discs in play then a player’s shot must “play to the middle”. This means at the end of this shot at least one of the player’s discs involved in the shot must be at least touching the 15 line or remain inside the 15 circle. This would include a 20 in the centre hole. This can be achieved by a direct shot or in combination with discs already in play.

If a valid shot is not made then the shooter’s disc and all the other discs of the same colour that were struck, including any 20's, shall be removed from play.

Damage Rule

An out-of-bounds disc that re-enters the playing surface must be removed from play. Any discs on the playing surface that were moved by the re-entering disc will remain in their new position and any 20’s made will count.

The Spinning Disc Rule

If a disc touches or crosses the outer line but does not leave the raised playing surface and returns under its own momentum to end up inside the outer line, it will be considered still in play.

SCORING

At the end of each round, scoring takes place. Each player / team counts their discs within each scoring zone.

The value of a disc in the centre hole (must be completely in the center hole and lying flat) is 20; inside the pegs (or not laying flat in center hole) is 15; outside the pegs is 10; the outer circle is 5.

A disc touching the line of a dividing circle is counted at a lower value.

Subtract the smaller score from the larger. The player / team with the higher score wins the round with difference in points.

Example of round #1: The 1st player has 50 points. The 2nd player has 15 points. The 1st player is awarded the difference, 35 points.

If neither player / team has reached a total of 100 points, the next round is started by the person sitting to the left of the lead shooter.

A game will be played until one team scores 100 points in total. (Sample scores of a completed game would be, 100-85, 110-60, 105-10, etc.)