Take the game of Snooker. We already know it's great. Now replace the giant table with a much smaller circular one. Replace the balls with wooden pucks. Put the table on a Lazy Susan so it spins around. Ta-da! You've got Carrooka.
Snooker and Billiards are fantastic skill games in their own right, of course, but they also bake in a few assumptions of their time. If you're a British Army officer in the 19th century, or an English earl with a dedicated room and budget for a giant table, they're great. But in 2026, living in a cluttered not-so-big home or apartment, Snooker is a non-starter for most people.
The other thing with Snooker, Pool and Billiards is that they're hard to play with young kids, because the cues and even the table height are all calibrated for grownups. This is another issue that Carrooka solves beautifully.
I first saw some videos of Carrooka and was fascinated. I started looking into the game, and discovered that all the boards for North America are made right here in Ontario, in the town of Elmira. So of course I had to drive over and meet the people making them.
This is Jeremy Tracey, of Tracey Boards fame. His company also makes excellent Crokinole boards, which is another fantastic skill game. The boards they make, both Crokinole and Carrooka, are produced at a very high level. He also happens to be one of the top-ranking Crokinole players in the world, but that's for another post.
Having visited Tracey Boards and seen the care put into each Carrooka board, I invested in a board of my own along with a wall hanger. It fit easily in the trunk of my car (yet another thing a billiards table can't do). When I got home I mounted the wall hanger, and ta-da, my Carrooka board has a permanent spot that's both visible and out of the way.
When it's time to play, I just take the board and plop it right on the kitchen table. Then I have just one decision to make before you start: Do I want to use Carrom powder, or not.
Carrom powder, as you may have guessed from the name, was originally formulated for the game of Carrom. This is another game where you slide pucks along a wooden board — and does this powder make the pucks slide! Just a small sprinkle of powder, and chaos ensues. You spread the powder as an invisible layer along the board, and it's like the pucks are suddenly hovering.
The powder makes the game much crazier and it may also be mildly toxic (depending on the brand, some use boric acid), so you probably don't want to be using it if you're playing with kids. But for a game between adults it adds a new dimension and makes the pucks behave much more like balls as they ricochet around.
Whether or not you use Carrom powder, you'll soon be using the rim of the board to ricochet shots. Just like with Snooker, much of the joy comes from planned or spontaneous trick shots, where your striker (the larger white puck) hits the rim of the board and then causes some other chaos that eventually ends with pocketing your goal.
The "rules load" and theory learning curve is low. Many people already know Snooker, and Carrooka is just a one-to-one translation. Even if you don't already know the game, it takes moments to learn.
The learning curve for actually playing well is... not very low. Just like Snooker, Carrooka rewards patience and practice. It's not a fast game: You need to sink all the reds and then all the colored pucks (or at least the black). It can easily take 30-40 minutes. But you do it all while sitting down and maybe sipping on something, so it's quite chill. Rather than having to walk around the board, you just gently spin the board so that whichever part you want comes to you. If you did opt for some Carrom powder, you do need to be very gentle when you spin the board — making the discs slide as you spin is a foul (and is very easy to do by mistake).
It plays great in two players, but also plays four, if you split up into two teams of two.
The Surprise
The surprise for me was that the boards for North America are made near enough for me to drive over and meet the people making them! That was such a treat. Tracey Boards doesn't operate a storefront — The door opens right into the manufacturing floor, so I got to see how they make everything. I feel confident in telling you these are quality boards.
The other surprise for me was how long a game takes. I've played some Crokinole before, which is quite a quick skill game and takes just a few moments to play through regardless of your level. Carrooka feels slower in comparison, though not if you're coming from Snooker. I soon came to embrace and quite enjoy the slower pace; it's such a nice way to spend time together.
A Carrooka board is an investment — this is not an impulse buy. At the same time, it is much cheaper than a full-size Billiards table, takes up much less room, and will last for years of gameplay. I hope to be using mine far into the future.
