Ruling the Board: Unterspielstadt 1/15/13 #1: Crokinole

Since I was the first person to arrive, I sat down with the host Eric for a game of Crokinole as people slowly began to trickle in.

In Crokinole, you have small wooden discs that you flick from the edge of the board attempting to land into the center hole or as close as you can get to it for the most points.

If your opponent has no discs on the board, you must land inside of the center ring or foul and remove the disc.  If your opponent does have at least one disc on the board, you must hit one of their discs or foul.

If you land in the hole or "Toad" you score 20 points and set it aside for later scoring.  Other scoring is 15 for fully inside the center ring, 10 for the second ring, and 5 for the outer ring.  Discs touching multiple rings are scored on the lower scoring ring and any disc touching the baseline is considered out.

Play goes back and forth until each player exhausts their discs.  This ends the round and points are tallied.  Only the player with the most points scores in the round and it is the difference of the two scores.  So, if player one scores 40 points and player two scores 20, the round would be scored as 20 points for player 1 and 0 for player 2.

The conclusion of a game can either come after a specified number of rounds or when a points total is met (often 100).  Often games are played in a best of three format.

I had a lucky start with this one and was able to open up a big lead early, capturing 2 toads.  The second round was a wash with both of us banging off of the pegs and rarely having a shot remain on the board for either fouling or leaving the board.

I was eventually able to sweep the rounds and win 100+ - 0

This was a fun way to start the evening and I find this to be a very entertaining game that could be great game to play over a few drinks with a friend as you catch up.  It requires some concentration and some shots require a little forethought and skill, but it could be played while chatting or watching TV as well.

Final Thoughts:

This was a good opening game, especially with only two of us available.  I am looking forward to playing this one again.

Unfortunately, due to the wood construction, the purchase of such a board is a bit on the pricey side.  This would be a fun one to bring to a day long board game event as it would ensure that as long as there are two people, they will always have something easy to pick up and play before games, after games, and while waiting for games to start up.