The rules of BACA 19-coin carrom are similar to those of traditional carrom, except for the scenarios described in this document. For everything else, the standard Laws of carrom as defined by the International Carrom Federation (ICF) will apply.
1. BACA 19-coin carrom in a nutshell
- This is a single-player game, where a player plays solo at home on their own board
- The player does the break, and proceeds to pocket all the 19 coins on the board
- Scoring is determined by the number of strokes taken by the player to clear the board
- A set of BACA 19-coin carrom is played for five such consecutive boards
2. Equipment
- Players shall use their own personal carrom equipment, as long as it complies with the specifications defined in the ICF rule book.
- The board can be of any make, year or model, as long as it has standard sizes for playing area, frame, and pockets
- Coins can be of any make or model, as long as they are standard size, and colors for black, white and red are distinguishable
- Striker used must comply with standard specifications
- Powder used can be either boric acid or potato starch
- Bulb used can be of any wattage
3. Break
- Coins must be arranged for breaks exactly as in traditional carrom
- Breaks can be done forward or backward
- Break counts as the first stroke for a board
4. Pocketing sequence
- All the 9 whites, and the queen, must be pocketed before attempting to pocket blacks
- Queen must be covered (followed) with a white
- If the player pockets the last white while the queen is still in play, that white will come back to the center of the board
- While one or more whites are still on the board, consequences of pocketing any blacks will be as follows:
- If the player just pockets one or more blacks in a stroke, all the blacks pocketed in that stroke will come back to the center of the board
- If the player pockets one or more blacks along with one or more whites, all the coins pocketed in that stroke - both whites and blacks - will remain pocketed
- If the player pockets any blacks while pocketing the queen, both the queen and those blacks will remain pocketed (the queen could come back to the center of the board if the player fails to cover it with a white in the immediate next stroke, but the blacks pocketed along with the queen will still remain pocketed)
- The above rule applies to the break as well
- If both whites and blacks are pocketed in the break, they will all remain pocketed
- If whites, blacks, and the queen are pocketed in the break, they will all remain pocketed, and the queen will be considered as covered
- If only blacks are pocketed in the break, all the blacks will come back to the center of the board
- If only blacks and the queen are pocketed in the break, both the queen and the blacks will come back to the center of the board
5. Placement of dues, double dues, fouls, and center coins
- All dues and fouls will be placed in the center of the board
- Double dues will be placed stuck together, either horizontally or vertically, right above the center of the circle
- While placing any coin in the center of the board, it should be placed as close to the center as possible without disturbing other coins, and without making a shot for any coin, including the queen
6. Scoring
- In 19-coin carrom, scoring is determined by the average number of strokes taken by the player to clear the board of all the coins
- Everytime the player releases the striker, it will count as a stroke
- Break will be counted as the first stroke of a board
- A stroke will be counted regardless of whether a coin is pocketed in that stroke
- A set will be played for five consecutive boards, and the average number of strokes across those five boards will be deemed as the final set score
- Examples of scoring in 19-coin carrom:
- If the player pockets exactly one white in the break, then proceeds to pocket exactly one coin in every subsequent stroke as per the rules stated above, the player would end up taking exactly 19 strokes to clear the board, hence the board score would be 19
- A typical set score for a good player might look like {21, 24, 19, 27, 23}, for which the final set score would be 22.80 (calculated as 21+24+19+27+23 divided by 5)
- The maximum number of strokes per board is capped at 45. Once a player reaches 45 strokes for a particular board, he/she can choose to continue playing the board, or stop and start a new board. Either way, the score reported for that particular board shall not exceed 45.