 Crokinole historian Wayne Kelly states that the game may be one of many efforts to combine crokinole with pichenotte, the French Canadian version of carrom.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 through which the players had to shoot their pieces, according to Mr. Kelly.