If you think this pick is about a man playing pool, look again. It’s not a pool table, and the stick is far too short. What the man is playing is in fact, carrom – a combination of pool and shuffleboard. The use of cue sticks seems to be a Chinese variant of the game, usually, the game is played with fingers. Carrom seems to have originated in India, although variations of the same theme appear throughout the world. yg talks about this variation of carrom (played with cue sticks), which he played while teaching at school, during breaks.

back in the kampong days, when i played carrom, it was the chinese variant, played with a cue stick. the board was raised and had legs, and it had pockets at the four corners too. unlike the game played today, you cannot play it with the board flat on the ground. the cue stick was slimmer and shorter than the billiard stick.

unlike the conventional carrom, you placed the seeds, not in the middle but, at the opposite sides. your opponent would try to pocket the seeds on your side and vice versa. the striker was a plastic piece, about 4mm thick but the seeds were actually the round pieces that we used for chinese chess. there was no extra piece, like the red piece (queen or match-maker) in the carrom that is played today.

Of course, it seems like this recreational activity has fallen out of favour, but I did find it interesting that there were carrom boards in the staff rooms of schools. Who knows? Perhaps in the future we’ll start to see teachers playing Guitar Hero during their free periods – and blogging about it here. =P

Link to yg’s post on the Chinese Variation of Carrom.