Links
How to play:
Browncastle Games's tutorial (Note: Your humble webmaster owns a Browncastle board)
Jeremy Tracey, the world's foremost promoter of Crokinole and builder of first-class boards, explains the rules.
How to play better:
Jeremy Tracey's extensive collection of Crokinole skills tips. No matter your level of skill, from never played before to played all my life, you'll find tons of great information here!
Extra Pint Crokinole Club Texas's discussion of situational awareness
Where to buy a board:
Browncastle Games makes excellent traditional wooden boards with wooden disks, and they have recently introduced really cool-looking resin boards and disks. I purchased a traditional set because I am interested in tournament play, and I want a board that will play the same way that the boards I am likely to find at tournaments will play. I think the resin boards and disks will appeal to more casual players. The resin disks are heavier than traditional wooden disks, and I think (based on experience way too small to have a valid opinion) that the resin boards are likely to be slicker. My best Crokinole friend owns a Tracey board, and I can't see any difference between game play on his board and mine. Browncastle makes the best Crokinole board bags.
Tracey Boards makes the boards used at all of the high-level Crokinole tournaments, including the World Crokinole Championships.
Where to play:
Refuge Gaming, 4180 Pearl Rd., Brunswick: Our partner. The Cleveland Crokinole Club meets there every second Thursday. Refuge offers tons of other games as well. A one-day pass costs $5.
Schnitz Ale Brewery, 5729 Pearl Rd., Parma. The Cleveland Crokinole Club meets there every fourth Monday. Good food, good bear and Crokinole! What could be better?
Jeremy Tracey's Crokinole Connections Map. Have you noticed how Jeremy Tracey's name keeps appearing here?
The National Crokinole Association's club list
Crokinole USA's club list has a few places, but it hasn't been updated for a while.
Extra Pint Crokinole Club, which has chapters in Voorheesville, NY (near Albany), Houston, TX, Toledo, OH, and Litchfield, NH.
Windy City Crokinole Club, Chicago, IL
Where to watch Crokinole:
Crokinole Centre's YouTube channel, with videos of expert players vying at many high-end tournaments, all with expert commentary.
The final match at Refuge Gaming's winter tournament. (I came in fourth.)
Extra Pint Crokinole Club New York's YouTube channel. Check out their Crokinole Happy Hour interviews with top players and other movers and shakers in the Crokinole universe.
Extra Pint Crokinole Club Texas's YouTube channel
The final match at the 2024 Royal Kids Club tournament in Kittaning, PA (home of Browncastle Games). The most exciting Crokinole I ever played! The match took place in Kittaning, PA, the home of Browncastle Games. It used a St. Jacobs doubles format. There were 5 St. Jacobs sets, with two boards and eight players per set. Players kept individual score cards. Each match was four games, with 2 points awarded for a win and one point for a tie. After every match, players changed partners in a pattern that ensured that each player played with each other player once. The two players with the highest point totals at the end of the seven matches became permanent partners for a double-elimination final tournament. I was very pleased when Zac Ufner, of the Charm City Crokinole Club in Baltimore, was assigned to my St. Jacobs set. I figured that he and I would win from our set, and that's what happened. We cruised through the first couple of matches in the finals tournament. At first it looked as though we'd cruise to the final win. But it didn't work out that way!
Other worthwhile links:
The National Crokinole Association, arbiter of the official rules of Crokinole (Don't worry. There's no wrong way to play Crokinole. But if you go to a tournament, these are the rules you'll most likely be using.)
The World Crokinole Championship: Web site of the World Crokinole Championship, held every year that there isn't a pandemic in Tavistock, Ontario. Registration, history, results, and lots of other stuff.
The Pink Shirt Pod: Andrew Hutchinson's podcast, featuring interviews with people active in the Crokinole tournament world. It is so named because, for some reason unknown to your humble webmaster, Andrew always wears pink shirts to tournaments.
Board Game Geek's Crokinole forum
The Crokinole subreddit on Reddit
Crokinole Depot: Jason Beierling's web site feature sales of boards and other accessories, videos, player profiles, a blog, and results from the skills competitions that were held at the World Crokinole Championships for several years. The skills videos are good sources of challenges for improving your own skills.