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Basic Rules of Draughts

DRAUGHTS BOARD AND MEN

  1. At the commencement of play the red men occupy squares 1 to 12 and the white men occupy squares 21 to 32.
  2. Each player starts with 12 discs, or “men”, all of equal size. One player has dark coloured men (called red) and the other has light coloured men (called white)
  3. The draughts board is square in shape and is divided into 64 squares of equal size, alternately light and dark in colour (technically called green and buff).
  4. The board is placed between the two players such that the bottom left-hand corner square is green.
  5. The game is played on the green squares, which for the purpose of reference are assigned numbers from 1 to 32.

ORDER OF PLAY

THE MOVES

There are fundamentally 4 types of move: the ordinary move of a man, the ordinary move of a king, the capturing move of a man, and the capturing move of a king.

ORDINARY MOVE OF A MAN

ORDINARY MOVE OF A KING

An ordinary move of a king (crowned man) is from one square diagonally forward or backward, left or right, to an immediately neighbouring vacant square.

CAPTURING MOVE OF A MAN

A capturing move of a man is its transfer from one square over a diagonally adjacent and forward square occupied by an opponent’s piece (man or king) and on to a vacant square immediately beyond it. (A capturing move is called a “jump”). On completion of the jump the capturing piece is removed from the board.

CAPTURING MOVE OF A KING

A capturing move of a king is similar to that of a man, but may be in a forward or backward direction.

CAPTURING IN GENERAL

TOUCHING THE PIECES

FALSE, IMPROPER OR ILLEGAL MOVES

RESULTS OF THE GAME

There are only two possible states to define: the win and the draw.

DEFINITION OF A WIN

The game is won by the player who can make the last move, that is, no move is available to the opponent on his/her turn to play, either because all his/her pieces have been captured or his/her remaining pieces are all blocked.

A player also wins if his/her opponent:

DEFINITION OF A DRAW

© NorthWest Draughts Federation 2002