GUIDE TO BUYING AND USE OF CARROM

This guide is for people who don't know Carrom.

Any additional advice, correction or criticism are welcome, write me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

As you have noticed the carrom boards have significantly different of price from 29 € up  to over 200 €, I want explain the differences between the various boards.

For playing carrom you need :

- Carrom Board
- at least one striker, usually players  prefer personal strikers
- carrommen (pawn spielsteine)
- powder or potato starch
- legs or table to put carrom boards
Carrom would be between 60 and 70 cm height, however it can be played on a common table, if you want to play twice (4 players) you need a small square or round table
On sale folding and transportable legs, they're height adjustable in order to keep the board perfectly horizontal.

SIZE OF BOARDS

The carrom board has the official size of the playing area of 29 inches, about 74 cm.
There are smaller versions for children and beginners usually 20, 23, 26 inches.With small board playing is more easy and this is suitable for learning.
For example, my children have 4 and 6 years and already play on a 20/23 inches board.

PLAYING AREA

That 's a very important element that distinguishes good boards from cheaper.
The board of the cheaper tables (for example, Jay in my shop) are painted with a glossy varnish and that makes the plan very smooth but not sliding, in this case is used as powder microspheres to supply the lack of smoothness of the board, on these board is not reccomended standard powder or potato starches.
Good boards (for example the Surco) have a plan that is manufactured with several treatments that make it smooth, without the use of varnish. Just put some powder or fine potato starch, good boards improve their fluency with use.
The playing plan is multi-layer plywood (several sheets of wood) where the last layer has essence of hard wood (usually birch).
The tournament have a top quality plywood and a great number of treatments (such as sanding with fine grain of different directions, more treatments make more 'smoothness)

THICKNESS OF PLYWOOD

The plans of quality boards are distinguished by a greater thickness.
Good thickness involves to a perfect plan (and therefore game is more accurated), board have weight and then is more stable.

FRAME SIZE

Good boards have large width and height, they have a good rebound and are more stable.
Hard wood  is preferred, Surco use valuable rosewood (palissandre), it have good rebounds and uniform in every point of the board.

WOOD FINISHING :

Different finishing doesn't matter for game skill, but only aesthetic.
Traditionally the boards was produced only black lacquered, finishing of cheap boards are approximative, carrom is very popular in India, they want have fun wiht approximative boards too.
With long use this black coating marks slightly, where the striker hit the frame, however does not affect the level of the game, as I've alraedy said good boards become better with useproblem.
Surco has developed beatiful natural finishing for western market, finishing in sheesham or rosewood (palissandre) which are wonderful to see.

POWDER

Do not use talcum powder or flower, use carrom powder or potato starch.

MAINTENANCE

Remove the dust with a soft cloth and dry.
When you finish to play,  pass a cloth or even better a brush with soft bristles and store the table in vertical position, Surco have two plastic protections to put boards on the floor.
There are covers to protect boards

TIPS  (in reference to the products of my shop on www.carrom.it):

For children from 4 to 8 years
You  can buy cheap Jay 23 inches, I don't like this heavy painting, natural wooden finishing I think is more halthy, you can use potato starch too on hem.
Even Surco excell (the cheaper Surco from us) has good finishing, you can't understand carrom quality with photos, you should see  boards.
Ellora sheesham is wonderful to see.

For kids from 8 to 12 years
It's good a 23 or 26 inches board

Beginners:
I recommend Ellora 29'', have a game plan pretty good, are aesthetically nice.
Top spin is good too, it's faster and price is similar.
Winit Speedo is a very good board similar to tournament board, you don't need to change boardwhen you want to play at good skill.