Author: !Undertaker!
There are some time ago, I wrote an article about classic checkers where I made known his rules, his history and his peculiarities. My article only fell upon this variant, because it’s the most played in my country, Portugal. However, I love checkers and I know play many variants, so I decided to write one more article, but this time about many others checkers variants.
Checkers games common characteristics and rules:
Checkers game was modified in different parts of the world, causing nowadays the existence of numerous variants that, even if they keep the main concepts in common, may be very different between them.
Origin
Though it’s not clear the origin of this ancient game, there’re some studies and publications about draughts strategy published in Spain dated from the 16th century. Nowadays there are many variants of the game.
Description
Checkers board is used and the size may be 8x8, 10x10 or 12x12 depending on the variant. Players have variable number of pieces, clear for one of them and dark for the other; only the squares in one of the colours are used (dark or clear squares, depending on the variant).
Objective
The aim is capturing or blocking all the opponent pieces, so that the player who cannot move when turn arrives is the loser of the game. The game becomes in a draw when the number of remaining pieces or their position on the board does not make possible the victory for any of both sides, or both players agree.
Start of the game and moves
In the checkers game, there are two different kinds of pieces: men and kings. At the start of the game, the men are placed alternatively in the first rows each side of the board. When one of the men reaches the first row of the opponent side is crowned and turns into a king. It will be recognized by placing another man of the same colour over the crowned one. When one man reaches the last as a result of a capture move it becomes a king and may not continue the move, even if it could make immediately any other capture as a king. However, this rule is not applied in Russian checkers.
Kings must be moved diagonally, like men, but they have always some additional possibilities depending on the variant. Always may be moved forward and backward and, in most variants, without limitations about the number of squares.
Note: In most of the variants (all except Turkish) moves are made always diagonally, and the men have to move only one square forward.
Capturing
The men capture also diagonally in most of the variants, by jumping on the opponent piece and reaching the next square behind the square occupied by the captured piece; the destination square must be empty, and only the square occupied by the captured piece must be between the starting and destinations squares. Some of the variants allow men capturing only forwards, and some other allow both forwards and backwards.
Kings capture also by jumping on opponent pieces but, same as normal moves, they have additional possibilities. In all the variants they may capture forwards and backwards and, in most variants, they may capture when there is one or more empty squares between the starting square and the captured piece or between the captured piece and the destination square. In any case, they can’t jump neither over own pieces nor over two opponent adjacent pieces.
Captures always are compulsory. Though the rules regarding the moves that may be made when there is more than one possible capturing move vary depending on the variants, in all the cases there is no option to make another kind of move whenever any capture is possible.
Both men and kings can make more than one jump in the same move, therefore capturing more than one piece. Whenever the capturing piece may jump again from the destination square it is compulsory to follow the capture move until it has no option to make any other jump.
When making multiple captures, in all variants except Turkish, the captured pieces are not removed from the board until the move is finished, and there is no option to jump twice over the same piece.
Final of the game
In order to avoid prolonging the game when it is obvious that it must be a draw because any of the players can’t win, all the variants provide some rules setting a maximum number of moves in certain circumstances. In such cases normally both players agree the draw before the limit is reached.
The game also ends in a draw whenever the same position of the pieces is repeated three times.
Specific rules for Checkers game
| Game | Board size | Flying king | Backwards capture | Quantity rule | Quality rule | Peculiarities |
| International Checkers | 10x10, 20 men | X | X | X | | The most practised checkers game in the world. |
| Brasilian Checkers | 8x8, 12 men | X | X | X | | Same rules as International Checkers. |
| Canadian Checkers | 12x12, 30 men | X | X | X | | Same rules as International Checkers. |
| Anglo-american Checkers | 8x8, 12 men | | | | | The easiest rules. |
| Italian Checkers | 8x8, 12 men | | | X | X | The easiest rules. |
| Russian Checkers (Shashki) | 8x8, 12 men | X | X | | | Pieces may continue jumping during the same move after becoming a king. |
| Russian Checkers (Poddavki) | 8x8, 12 men | X | X | | | This is the give away version of Shashki. |
| Pool Checkers | 8x8, 12 men | X | X | | | Rules are a mixture between International and Russian checkers. |
| Frisian Checkers | 10x10, 20 men | X | X | X | X | Orthogonal captures are allowed. |
| Thai Checkers | 8x8, 8 men | X | | | | The variant with the lowest amount of pieces. The flying king has limits. |
| Turkish Checkers | 8x8, 16 men | X | | X | | The All the squares are used and moves are orthogonal. |
(to be continued)
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