Crokinole

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Crokinole

Computer simulation of a crokinole board.
Designer	Eckhardt Reiner Elton Wettlaufer
Years active	ca. 1876–
Players	2 or 4
Skills required	Fine motor skill, eye–hand coordination, intuitive understanding of physics & plane geometry
Website	http://www.crokinole.com/

Crokinole (pronounced croak-i-knoll, /ˈkɹokɪnol/) is an action board game similar in various ways to pitchnut, carrom, marbles, and shove ha'penny, with elements of shuffleboard and curling reduced to table-top size. Players take turns shooting discs across the circular playing surface, trying to have their discs land in the higher-scoring regions of the board, while also attempting to knock away opposing discs.

Contents 1 Equipment 1.1 Powder 2 Gameplay 3 History of the game 4 World Championship 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Equipment

Board dimensions vary with a playing surface typically of polished wood or laminate approximately 27 inches (690 mm) in diameter. The arrangement is 3 concentric rings worth 5, 10, and 15 points as you move in from the outside. There is a shallow 20 point hole at the center. The inner 15 point ring is guarded with 8 small bumpers or posts. The outer ring of the board is divided into four quadrants. The outer edge of the board is raised a bit to keep errant shots from flying out, with a gutter between the playing surface and the edge to collect discarded pieces. Crokinole boards are typically octagonal or round in shape. The discs are roughly checker-sized, slightly smaller in diameter than the board's central hole, and often have concave faces to reduce sliding friction. Alternatively, the game may be played with ring-shaped pieces with a central hole.

[edit] Powder

The use of any lubricating powder in crokinole is controversial, with some purists reviling the practice.^[1]

Powder is used to ensure pieces slide smoothly on the surface. According to Carrom rules, the powder must be of high quality to keep surface smooth and dry, and shall not wet. Pouches and containers are used to spread the powder over playing surface. There must be no impurity in the powder. Boric acid powder is mostly used for this purpose.

In the UK, many players use a version of anti-set-off spray powder from the printing industry which has specific electrostatic properties with particles of 50 micrometre in diameter. The powder is made of pure food grade plant / vegetable starch.

[edit] Gameplay

Crokinole is most commonly played by two players, or by four players in teams of two, with partners sitting across the board from each other. Players take turns shooting their discs from the outer edge of their quadrant of the board onto the playfield. Shooting is usually done by flicking the disc with finger, though sometimes small cue sticks may be used. If there are any enemy discs on the board, a player must make contact, directly or indirectly, with an enemy disc during the shot, If unsuccessful, the shot disc is 'fouled' and removed from the board, along with any of the player's other discs that were moved during the shot. When there are no enemy discs on the board, many (but not all) rules also state that a player must shoot for the centre of the board, and a shot disc must finish either completely inside the 15-point guarded ring line, or (depending on the specifics of the rules) be inside or touching this line. This is often called the 'no hiding' rule, since it prevents players from placing their first shots where their opponent must traverse completely though the guarded centre ring to hit them and avoid fouling. When playing without this rule, a player may generally make any shot desired, and as long as a disc remains completely inside the outer line of the playfield, it remains on the board. During any shot, any disc that falls completely into the recessed central '20' hole is removed from play, and counts as twenty points for the owner of the disc at the end of the round.^[2][3][4]

Scoring occurs after all pieces have been played and is differential: the player or team with higher score is awarded the difference between the higher and lower scores for the round. Play continues until a predetermined score is reached.

[edit] History of the game

The earliest known crokinole board was made by craftsman, Eckhardt Wettlaufer in 1876 in Perth County, Ontario, Canada. Several other home-made boards of southwestern Ontario origin, and dating from the 1870s have been discovered since the 1990s. Crokinole is often believed to be of Mennonite or Amish origins, but there is no factual data to support such a claim. The reason for this misconception may be due to its popularity in Mennonite and Amish sects. The game was viewed as a rather innocuous pastime - unlike the perception that diversions such as card playing or dancing were 'works of the Devil' as held by many 19th century Protestant groups. The oldest roots of crokinole from the 1860s suggest the British and South Asian games are the most likely antecedents of what became crokinole.^[5]

In 1899, Crokinole was revolutionized by what is still known today as the "Eagan Opening". Thomas Eagan developed a complicated, 3-turn hybrid opening sequence in Tottenham, Ontario that confused, and ultimately defeated, all Perth County players. The Eagan Opening has never been published, but appears to have been passed down generation by generation to Thomas Eagan's descendants by word of mouth. What is known is that, on the initial shot, the "20" is missed on purpose, with the disc being left on the edge of the 20-hole. Then, depending on the opponent's response, the second or third shot is left behind the player's front-left peg that requires absolute precision for the opponent to remove. Even if the opponent was capable of "breaking through" the Eagan Opening, which the Eagan family themselves were experts at, it often caused such mental exhaustion that it resulted in defeat over the course of the game.

In the late 1940s, a crokinole playing family from Northeastern Newfoundland named the Fitzgeralds visited Tottenham on a cross-country tour. They introduced the Eagan family to the "Coachman's Screen", which purposely lulls the play into the 5-point area on the opponent's cross-side. The Eagan and Fitzgerald families soon learned that the Eagan Opening and Coachman's Screen, when used together, made them virtually unbeatable. Within the local church, after the Catholic mass on Sunday morning, they taught each other the angles and the succession matrix of each technique.^{[6] [7]}

The name "Crokinole" derives from the word "croquinole", Quebec French for "cookie" (or "biscuit" in British English).^[8] Crokinole is called knipsbrat ("flick-board") in the Low German spoken by Mennonites.

In 2006, a documentary film called Crokinole was released. The world premiere occurred at the Princess Cinema in Waterloo, Ontario in early 2006. The movie follows some of the competitors of the 2004 World Crokinole Championship as they prepare for the event. It also features interviews with Wayne "Mr. Crokinole" Kelly and crokinole board maker Willard Martin.^[8][9]

[edit] World Championship

The World Crokinole Championship (WCC) tournament has been held annually on the first Saturday of June since 1999 in Tavistock, Ontario. Tavistock was chosen as the host city because it was home of Eckhardt Wettlaufer, the creator of the earliest known board. The reigning world crokinole champion is Brian Cook of Toronto, Ontario. He won the 2009 Adult Singles Division which had 120 competitors. First prize for the championship is CDN$1,000. Cook has won the tournament the last three years[1]. The top ranked American was David Dunn[2]

The WCC begins with a qualifying round in which competitors play 10 matches against randomly assigned opponents. The qualifying round is divided into 2 separate sessions to accommodate the large number of players. At the end of the opening round the top 16 competitors move on to the playoffs. The top 4 in the playoffs advance to the semifinals to play each other with the top 2 competing in the finals.

The WCC has multiple divisions, including a singles finger shooting category for competitive players (Adult Singles), novices (Recreational), and younger players (Intermediate, 11-14 yrs; Junior, 6-10 yrs). The fingers doubles division was won by Ray and Jason Beierling of Varna, Ontario in 2009[3]. The brothers have won the doubles division the last three years. There are also categories for singles and doubles cues shooting. The WCC also awards a prize for the top 20-hole shooter in the Adult Singles qualifying round. The 2010 World Crokinole Championship will take place on Saturday, June 5, 2010.

[edit] See also

• Carrom
• Chapayev
• Novuss
• Pichenotte
• Pitchnut
• Shove ha'penny
• Shuffleboard
• Croqueno

[edit] References

Croqueno

[edit] External links

• Crokinole.com FAQ - Rules, FAQ and gallery of boards
• Crokinole at BoardGameGeek
• World Crokinole Championships
• Crokinole Depot Forum
• The Crokinole Post
• Crokinole Skills Competition
• Woodworking plans for Crokinole board