Pitchnut is a wooden

tabletop game Tabletop games or tabletops are games that are normally played on a Table (furniture), table or other flat surface, such as board games, card games, dice games, miniature wargames, Tabletop role-playing game, tabletop role-playing games, or ti ...

French Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French people, French colonists first arriving in Canada (New France), France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of ...

origins, similar to

carrom Carrom is a tabletop game of Indian origin in which players flick discs, attempting to knock them to the corners of the board. In South Asia, many clubs and cafés hold regular tournaments. Carrom is commonly played by families, including c ...

crokinole Crokinole ( ) is a :Disk-flicking games, disk-flicking dexterity board game, possibly of Canadian origin, similar to the games of pitchnut, carrom, and pichenotte, with elements of shuffleboard and curling reduced to table-top size. Players take ...

and

pichenotte Pichenotte ( / PEESH-nut) refers to a family of several :Disk-flicking games, disk-flicking games, mostly French Canadian in origin, including crokinole, pitchnut, and #Canadian–American carrom, North American carrom, which may sometimes be pla ...

, with mechanics that lie somewhere between

pocket billiards Pool is a series of cue sports played on a billiard table. The table has six pockets along the , into which balls are shot. "Pool billiards" is sometimes hyphenated and/or spelled with a singular "billiard". The WPA itself uses "pool-billiar ...

and

air hockey Air hockey is a tabletop sport where two opposing players try to score goals against each other on a low-friction table using two hand-held discs (mallets/pushers) and a lightweight plastic puck. The air hockey table has raised edges that al ...

. Unlike with other wooden board games, there are no records of pitchnut being mass-produced; all existing boards are handmade. Although Pitchnut is not a patented game and is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

, the names "Pitchnut" and "Pichenotte" have been trademarked. In French-speaking areas of Canada, the game is called pichenotte, which is French for "flick." There are several other disk-flicking games which are also referred to as '

' by French speakers. Many modern boards are in use, made mostly b
Lee Larcheveque
and before him, by Achille Scalabrini, in Sainte-Edwidge-de-Clifton, Quebec, Canada. The game is common on the farming villages near

Coaticook Coaticook ( , ) is a town on the Coaticook River, located in southeastern Quebec, Canada. It resides in the region of Estrie, which is often referred to colloquially as the Eastern Townships. It is the seat of the Coaticook Regional County Mu ...

, Quebec, Canada; in Maine; and in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States.

Origins

Very little about the history of the game has been written. Crokinole historian Wayne Kelly states that the game may be one of many efforts to combine

with

, the

version of

. A similar board was patented in 1893 by E.L. Williams, but that game board had 8 pegs in the center of the board (like crokinole) but had only one peg in front of each pocket. Wayne Kelly's crokinole.com web site shows an image of a board that looks very similar to pitchnut (called "improved crokinole"), but the pegs in front of the pockets take the form of a

wicket In the sport of cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is either of the two sets of three Stump (cricket), stumps and two Bail (cricket), bails at each end of the Cricket pitch, pitch. The Fielding (cricket), fielding team's playe ...

through which the players had to shoot their pieces, according to Mr. Kelly. Pitchnut was primarily played in the farming villages around Coaticook, Quebec, where Achille Scalabrini built the games during the mid-twentieth century. As descendants of those villages moved to small cities and the U.S., the game has spread.

Equipment

The game is played on a wooden board, normally 28 inches square. It differs from carrom and pichenotte boards in that it has a 2-inch gutter along the entire circumference of the board. It is likely that the recessed gutters were added to direct playing pieces toward the pockets. In Carrom or pichenotte, a piece that is struck will not be guided towards the pockets. Pitchnut also has 4 pegs (or "screws") in the center of the board and two pegs in front of each pocket. The pegs in the center of the board may have been added to help position the pieces into a consistent circular formation. The game is played with small wooden discs. The object of the game is to finger-flick a comparatively heavy disk, called a striker, shooter or pitch, such that it contacts lighter object discs and propels them into one of four corner pockets. The pieces come in two sets, usually white and black, denoting the two players (or, in doubles play, teams). An additional piece is colored (red and green are common) and called the "poison", which is the disc equivalent of the

eight ball Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes, bigs and smalls, big ones and little ones, or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, ...

in pool games.

Rules

American pitchnut is played with rules that are very similar to

eight-ball Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes, bigs and smalls, big ones and little ones, or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of Pool (cue sports), pool played on a billiard tabl ...

pool. The goal is to sink all of one's object pieces and the "poison" or

before one's opponent does. Play begins with alternating ten differently colored pieces in a ring in the center of the board. Five pieces fit between each peg. An off-colored piece (poison) is placed in the center of the board. There are two main variations in rules- Canadian and American, though rules may also vary among families. In all variations, object pieces must be struck with a larger shooter. The shooter must remain either entirely or half way behind each player's home line. The shooter must be returned to the home line before each shot. The shooter is usually shot with the index or middle finger and thumb in a flicking action ("pichenotte" in French). The shooter may be pushed briefly with a finger, in a shoving motion, without the use of the thumb, but may not be pushed or dragged with the finger ("carried") across the player's home line. If the poison is sunk before all of a player's pieces are pocketed, that player loses. Games usually last around five minutes. Canadian pitchnut uses the same rules as

, a similar game that does not have pegs or recessed gutters. The object is to score 50 points before your opponent does. A player earns five points for each of his opponents pieces that remain on the board. The odd-colored piece (dame) is worth fifteen points and can be shot in at any time (some rules require that a player "cover" the dame by immediately sinking one of his/her own pieces. Some families/regions play with two odd-colored pieces in the center. A game can consist of several rounds of play, and a game can last 20 minutes or more.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Pitchnut website
– with rules and purchase information.
Pitchnut Trademark
Disk-flicking games

Origins

Equipment

Rules

See also

References

External links