Pen Fight operated by LetsCrak

Pen Fight Tips & Tactics

Last updated: 4 September 2026

The single best tip in Pen Fight is to stop trying to win the round on this flick. Most rounds are lost to your own pen rather than your rival's: you hit full power at a pen near the edge, it goes over, and yours carries through and follows it. Play the shot that leaves you somewhere safe, and the knockout arrives on its own.

Read these, then go and lose a few rounds to Ruwan on purpose.

Play Pen Fight

1. Own the middle of the desk

The centre is the only square on the desk from which nothing can be knocked off in one shot. A pen sitting there has to be moved twice before it is in danger, which means your rival has to spend a turn setting up — and the turn they spend setting up is the turn you spend attacking. Being in the middle is worth more than being in front of them.

2. Use the softest shot that does the job

Power is the most over-used control in the game. A pen already close to the edge needs a nudge, not a hammer; the difference is that a nudge leaves your own pen where you put it and a hammer sends it wherever the collision decided. The power curve is deliberately gentle at the short end, so the small shots are precise and reliable — use them.

3. Hit off-centre when you want the angle

Grabbing your pen near one end sends it out spinning. A spinning pen comes off a collision sideways rather than straight, which is the only way to knock a pen off an edge you are not lined up with. Grab in the middle when you want a clean push; grab towards the end when you want the ricochet.

4. Aim at the end of their pen, not the middle

Striking a pen dead centre pushes it away in a straight line, which is easy to defend and rarely reaches an edge. Hitting near one end spins it, and a spinning pen keeps travelling after your own has stopped. Half the long shots that look lucky are this.

5. Watch what your own pen does after contact

Before you release, work out where your pen ends up — not where theirs does. This is the habit that separates people who win series from people who win rounds. A shot that takes their pen off and leaves yours hanging over the far edge has handed the next round back.

6. Nothing counts until the desk is still

A pen half over the edge is not out. Pens come back from a long way over, and a pen that looks lost will sometimes settle. Do not write off the round while things are still moving — and equally, do not celebrate.

7. Sideways is shorter than forwards

The desk is 70 cm wide and 45 cm deep, so the side edges are always nearer than the far one. When you have a choice of directions to send a pen, send it sideways. It is a shorter trip, so it needs less power, so your own pen moves less.

8. Pick a pen that fixes your worst habit

Every pen in the case wins between 45% and 55% against every other, so there is no pen that makes you better — only one that makes your particular mistake cheaper. If you over-hit, take something that stops dead like the Grip Max or the Tri Pro. If you keep getting cornered, take something that crosses the desk like the Needle Point. The full list is on the pens page.

9. In a four-way, take the shot that pays

With three or four at the desk, every pen you send off is a mark whether or not you survive the round, and taking the round is worth two. That changes the maths completely: a shot that knocks somebody off and kills you is a break-even trade, not a disaster. Sitting back and hoping the others eliminate each other is the losing strategy, because they are scoring while you wait.

10. Learn one bench opponent at a time

The eleven-rung bench is a teaching order, not just a difficulty ramp. Each opponent punishes a different mistake, and the one-line warning under their name says which: Pancha will not take a risky shot, so he is there to teach you not to leave an easy one. Kandu will sit in the middle all day, so he is there to teach you to attack a defended centre. Beat one properly rather than scraping past three.

The mistake almost everybody makes

Full power is almost never the right answer. Every flick moves your own pen as much as your rival's, so power is not free — it is a loan against your next turn. Players who cut their average shot power in half win more rounds within an afternoon, because they stop donating position on shots they already had.

Common questions

How do you get better at Pen Fight quickly?

Cut your power. Aim off-centre. Stay near the middle of the desk. Those three cover most of the gap between a new player and a good one, and none of them needs practice to start doing.

Is Pen Fight luck or skill?

Skill, with a real element of chance in individual collisions. The physics is deterministic — the same flick on the same desk gives the same result every time — but small differences in where you strike a pen produce large differences in outcome, which is what makes a short round feel unpredictable and a long series feel fair.

Does going first matter?

Slightly, at the start of a round. It matters little enough over a best of five that the balance testing deliberately alternates the opening so it cannot flatter either side.

Fewer full-power shots. That is the whole guide, if you only take one thing.