About Carombo

Carombo is a three-cushion trainer built by a player, for players. It started at a table: an expert player who wanted to train shot selection the way chess players train with puzzles.

What it does

Every position in the trainer is read by an engine that tries thousands of strokes: every ball-first hit, the banks, different tips and speeds. It plays each candidate many times with the small errors a real stroke has, and keeps the routes that still score. Then it ranks them the way an expert would: big ball, two-way, the hit, running english, ball first, and the next shot.

The engine is tuned to score about two points per inning, the average of the best players in the world, and its choices are checked by eye against a real table.

Why the name

A carambola is a carom: the cue ball striking both object balls, the point itself, in Spanish and Portuguese. Carombo is that word with a little more bounce. In the logo, the cue ball sits inside the C and the two O's are the yellow and the red.

Languages

Three-cushion is played everywhere from Seoul to Medellín, Istanbul to Antwerp. The trainer speaks 33 languages and follows your browser's language; change it in the menu. The lessons are in English for now, with more languages to come.

Who makes it

Carombo is made by SmoothStrat LLC. It is free to use; ads will help pay for it.