When to play offence and when defence; knowing your strong and weak points; the killer’s instinct that closes games.
PLANNING
Perfect planning makes a player perfect. Immediately after the break you must take a look at the position of coins on the carrom board and should decide from where to start and how you should proceed. Carrom is a game of planning and not only the game of pocketing coins. There are many players who are better in pocketing coins than the champions; stil1 they can’t beat champions only because of their poor planning. You should start playing in such a way that when you lose turn of play, then you should always get a favourable position. You should always take an advantage of every coin on the carrom board to improve your position. When I had been to European countries and I played in some of the clubs, I received an appreciation from the members of those clubs. In their speeches they described me as doctor of carrom, professor of carrom, mathematician of carrom and so on. But the remark I liked most was that of one member who in his speech said that they were using one striker whereas I was using three strikers.
t. My own striker as a striker
My coin as a striker
My opponent’s coin as a striker I shall explain it as below.
I could take an advantage of my striker to make my difficult carrommen easy or opponent’s coin difficult while pocketing my own coin.
Many times the position was such that my coin was at the opposite frame and was difficult for me but i got a chance to make it easy by playing a glance on my coin driving the coin onto the difficult coin at the opposite frame to make it easy and pocket my other coin which was on the pocket. Here I was using my coin as a striker to make my difficult coin from the opposite frame easy.
The above position could occur with the following difference" Instead of playing glance on my coin; I was playing glance on opponent’s and driving it onto my coin difficult coin to make it easy. In planning so many factors are
involved like how to go for finishing a board, how to get a better position on the board, how to reduce our turns, and how to increase opponent’s turns etc. In one of the ladies selection trials for Bank of Baroda Inter zonal carrom tournament I had to select one player. We had called some women players for the trials. I selected the woman whose pocketing was not as good as compared to other women due to lack of practice. Everyone was blaming me but I knew that she had a better understanding for planning. After giving her practice for a few days when she became champion in the tournament, all of them were surprised. Suraj Kajrolkar, a junior champion from Mumbai had come to me to learn the game. In one of his breaks immediately I asked him what his plans were. He told me his plans. According to his plans it was not possible to finish the board. I suggested him my plans and then he played as per my plans and he finished the board. It was a white slam. I have told many players my plans when they were playing with me and when they played according to my plans; they always got a better position. I then taught them how to plan. I am a great admirer of Suhas Kambli, Maria Irudayam and Nirmala for their wonderful planning capability. You should learn planning and not simply pocketing coins. You should develop a habit of planning. I give below some hints about planning.
You should not try to pocket your coins by making many of opponent’s carrommen easy for him unless you have a finishing chance. I have seen many players trying to pocket their coins without thinking what position will be there on the board after pocketing their coins because they have only one motto of pocketing their own carrommen only.
Even though you have finishing opportunity you must decide the sequence of pocketing coins what you have to think is that you can miss any coin during your play and therefore you should select such a coin to pocket that even if you miss it, you will get a turn back. Once I was playing a match where I was having my last coin at opponent’s base frame and there was a coin of my opponent near to mv coin in such a position that by taking advantage of his coin by glance I could pocket my coin easily. My opponent had a finishing position on the board though all his nine coins were on the board. Instead of selecting a coin, which was an advantage to me and easy thumbing for him, he chose other coin but unfortunately missed it and I got the opportunity of
pocketing my last difficult coin by taking advantage of his coin. If my opponent had chosen to pocket the coin, which was an advantage to me first and even if he had missed it he could have one more chance which he could have utilized for finishing the board.
You can pocket your own coin and at the same time can drive your striker onto the opponent’s coin to make it difficult.
You can create favourable positions by sending your striker in a correct direction and with a controlled speed while pocketing your coin.
When you are moving any coin by striker you must determine first where that moved coin should come. Many times it happens that you remove obstacle of your one coin but you don’t think where that moved coin will go and therefore that moved coin becomes obstacle for your other coin.
When you are pocketing your coin and making position of the other coins on the board with your striker for the next stroke the position should be precise and should always be favourable to you.
Many times you have to bring your coin at advantageous position by pocketing your coin for making your other difficult coin easy for your next stroke, e.g. suppose your one or more coin are at the opposite frame, one coin at the opposite pocket and one coin is at glance position. In this situation you can play glance trying to bring that coin that you have glanced on your base lines or near to base lines so that you can remove your difficult coin from opposite frame by playing a bomb stroke with the coin which has been brought to the base lines.
Sometimes your coin is at the opposite frame. By pocketing your coin if you push your other coin near it you get four possibilities to pocket that difficult coin.
By pushing your coin near your difficult coin at the opposite frame a shot can be formed. b) A pair can be formed. c) You can get a touch position d) You can get a glance position.
If your coin is at the opposite frame and there is no chance of bringing the other coin for a bomb stroke then you can try to bring it to such a position that
by cutting, straight cutting or cross cutting it, you can drive your striker onto your difficult coin to make it easy.
Many times there is a coin on your base lines for a bomb stroke. You are tempted to play a bomb stroke but before playing it, you should see the position of your other carrommen on the board and decide whether to play a bomb is a must. If your other coin are easy and if you can pocket them straight then it is not necessary to play a bomb stroke but if some of your coin are difficult then you have to play a bomb stroke after pocketing your easy coins. In this position also you should play your bomb stroke by deciding at which point of the frame and at what speed your striker should hit the frame to get you a favourable position on the board.
Sometimes you have a finishing chance and position of playing a glance to your opponent’s coin you should play glance first making your opponent’s coin difficult for him and then go for a finish. Here because of opponent’s difficult coin you gain more confidence to finish the board and even if you miss any coin still you get a turn.
Many times there is a possibility of making your opponent’s coin difficult for him by pocketing your own coin. you should do it because you get an extra turn.
When there is already opponent’s coin at your base frame and if you want to bring another coin of him to your base frame by playing a glance stroke then you must keep in mind that the said coin should not come near to the other coin which is already there. Otherwise your opponent will get a chance of one of those coins bv ihe advantage of the other coin.
You should count the turns you are going to get from your opponent and how many turns you will be giving to him/her. Try to increase turns from him/her and try to reduce you giving him/her turns.
Suppose one of the coins is difficult for him/her but at the same time if there is other coin by which he/she can make difficult coin easy by playing other coin then you should try to make that advantageous coin difficult. By this way when you had no turn, you can create two turns. When your two or more coin are at your opposite frame and are difficult for you then instead of trying to pocket one coin in one stroke you plan in such a way that in one turn you can remove maximum difficult coins from the opposite frame and thus can reduce your turns.
Killer’s Instinct
However good you may be playing but unless you have killer’s instinct you cannot become champion. How to develop this killer’s instinct is a problem for many players. For developing this quality you must always think that you are the supreme authority in your field. (Not with overconfidence or proud) When you are playing with inferior players you should play in such a way that they should think that you are far superior to them. You should go all out only then you can beat them easily. I have seen some superior players afraid of taking risk and try to play a very safe game thereby losing confidence and winning with a great difficulty. I always say, when you are a champion you should play like a champion. If you are a champion and playing with other champion then also you must play with killer’s instinct. You try to dominate by playing some good strokes taking some risk. If you lose to some player you should be eager to play with him again in some other tournament and beat him. The players who have no killer’s instinct are afraid of playing with the other players with whom they had lost earlier. After losing my form in the latter stage of my carrom carrier I had lost to two players from my bank in our internal tournament but after that I again thought to play with those players with killer’s instinct. I decided to beat all mv opponents from first round to the final below 10 points and I could do it. In another incident I had given my entry in an open tournament through one champion. I asked him about my match. He gave me information that I had to play with a player who had given him tough fight in earlier tournament and he advised me to play cautiously with that player. I decided to play with killer’s instinct with that player and used all my weapons and could beat him 25-4, 25-1. I have seen Suhas Karnbli having quality of killer’s instinct to a great extent much more than that of mine. He
was extending his matches to third game purposely in the preliminary rounds including National championships for getting practice due to his awkward locking grip. In one of the Nationals I still remember Suhas was giving so many chances to his opponent who got frustrated and got up from his seat angrily feeling insult of getting chances purposely from Suhas. Believe me, the player with whom Suhas played such a game was not an ordinary player but was a champion. Maria Irudayam is also having very strong ki1ler’s instinct. In Guntur Nationals he did not drop a single game in the whole tournament. In National championship at Faridabad Maria had lost to Sanjay Mande very cheaply but immediately in the world championship he beat Sanjay Mande. Sanjay Mande is also a player to be noted for his killer’s instinct. For many years he did not allow any player in his district even to give a fight to him. In earlier years I have seen three wizards of carrom having ’tremendous killer’s instinct. They were Apparao from Andhra, Azimuddin Shaikh and Abdul Jabbar from Mumbai. Apparao has won three National championships in succession. He had a great ability of spinning the striker artificially for playing special strokes, which were impossible to play with natural grips. He had such a magical control over the striker that he could bring the coins at desired places. Apparao had a unique break by arranging coins at Y position and not shot facing towards pocket. He was very thin by his physic but had a tremendous power in his fingers" He used to break in such a way that after break not a single coin was remaining in the circle. Azimuddin Shaikh was known for his bomb strokes" His grip was very firm and powerful. He used to play such fantastic strokes with great accuracy regularly in the tournaments, which we would dare to play only in the exhibition matches. Abdul Jabbar was always confident of his skills. He was a master for cut and double strokes. He was always saying that there was no difficult coin on the carrom board. He had a unique middle finger flat grip, which was giving a natural spin to the striker. He was playing unimaginable cuts and doubles with great accuracy. He used to pocket a coin that was very near to the opposite frame to his base pockets with ease by the stroke called double. Abdul Jabbar was playing a final of an open tournament against me. We had won a game each and in the third game we were 28 each when the game was of 29 points. In the last board the position was such that there was one coin each of us and Queen was on the board. My coin was very easy for me. Queen and his coin were sticking together at his base frame sticking to the
center of the frame in the position of a wrong shot. Any player would have simply released the Queen and his coin for next stroke, as there was 70% risk of not pocketing the Queen. Even then instead of releasing the Queen and his coin Abdul Jabbar played a very difficult double touch by following a striker and finished the board thereby not giving me an opportunity to play. In another tournament against Devji Sumra Jabbar made white slam in last board in each game when the score was 28 each in both the games.