Crokinole Shooting: 4 Common Mistakes for Beginners

For crokinole beginners, there are four mistakes that make shooting extremely difficult: the floating hand, rapid-fire shooting, flicking pieces off-centre, and tilting your finger. By the end of this blog, you’ll be able to identify these four common mistakes and know how to correct them!

Mistake #1: The Floating Hand

Whether someone told you you weren’t allowed to touch the board, or it’s what came to you naturally, it’s very common for new players to “float” their hand as they shoot. As shown in the image above, the hand hovers above the rail, with nothing but the arm to offer stability.

The issue with the floating hand is that, without anything to keep your hand still, your hand can shake and move just enough to throw your shot completely off-line. The good news is, the fix is simple! Rest the bottom part of your palm on the railing of the board, and rest your non-shooting fingers on the board. This will help to anchor your hand, removing the variables that cause mistakes to happen in every shot.

Note that the exact way you anchor your hand will change depending on how you shoot, but as long as you have your hand resting down rather than up in the air, you should notice immediate improvements in your shooting.

See Crokinole for Beginners Episode #3 for the full breakdown of how to spot and address this issue.

Mistake #2: Rapid Fire

This is something that held me back for a while: flicking your piece as soon as you place it on the board. Especially as a new player, not taking the time to place your disc, wait a beat while you line up your shot, then shoot, can throw off your line entirely.

This is another easy fix, and is something Jeremy calls the 3-second rule. Place your shot, and then count to three as you visualize your shot, and then flick your piece. It seems so simple, and yet this trick can solve so many problems.

Note: you’ll notice that top players do not take three seconds with their shots – most of them take no more than a second or two before they shoot. As you get better, you’ll find that you can shoot quicker. But, as you get a hang of the game, the 3 second rule will work wonders for you.

See Crokinole for Beginners Episode #4 for the full breakdown of how to spot and address this issue.

Mistake #3: Hitting Pieces Off-Centre

This is the kind of mistake than can be easily missed – many new players will be so focused on hitting the opponent piece that they won’t look at where they’re hitting their own piece. If you look at the above picture, you can see that the finger is slightly off to the side of the disc; this is enough to throw your shot completely off-line.  If you aren’t flicking your piece centre with the line you want it to go on, the piece will cut off on an angle; hit the piece slightly to the right of centre? It’ll go left. Hit it slightly left? It’ll go right.

This commonly happens with new players who shoot with their middle finger, as their visibility of the piece is somewhat blocked by their own hand (although this can also happen with players who shoot with their pointer too).

The great news is, this mistake is most commonly fixed by fixing mistakes 1 and 2! So, to build off the 3 second rule: take those 3 seconds to make sure you’re hitting the piece dead centre! Another tip is to have your finger as close behind your piece as possible. If your flick starts 2 inches away from the piece, then there’s 2 inches of distance in which mistakes can happen – close the distance, and guarantee you’re hitting the piece dead centre.

Mistake #4: Tilted Fingers

This isn’t inherently wrong – you’ll see many competitive players (myself included) that have a slight tilt in their hand when they shoot. The issue arises when your finger is closer to horizontal than vertical. The image above shows an exaggerated example, although, we have seen beginners shoot like this. With the finger near-horizontal with the board, you are guaranteed to run into problems.

Please note that you do NOT need to have your finger perfectly vertical to shoot well. Many top players do shoot like this, however, many players (including myself) have a slight angle in their finger when they shoot. The key is making sure that you’re still hitting the piece dead centre, and that your finger points towards the general direction that you want your piece to go, if you follow through with your flick into a point. When your hand is more horizontal, you’re more likely to hit the piece on the sides versus dead centre, which causes it to go off line.

The fix? Play around with bringing your shooting finger more vertical to the board. Maybe you’ll find that shooting perfectly vertical works well for you – maybe you’ll find that a slight slant feels more comfortable. Just make sure that your shooting finger is closer to vertical than horizontal, and this should help keep your shot on-line.

See Crokinole for Beginners Episode #6 for the full breakdown of how to spot and address both hitting the piece dead centre as well as tilted fingers.

Putting it all Together

Will these small fixes make you the next World Crokinole Champion? No, probably not. But: they will help you get away from missing or hitting a post every other shot, and get towards playing crokinole to its full potential. Let us know if these tips helped you out, and happy flicking!