International draughts rules

Board and pieces

• It is played on the dark squares of a 12x12 checkerboard.
• Both sides have 30 men (white and black), initially placed on the 5 lowest ranks of the board.
• The player with white pieces starts the game.

Moves and captures

• Pieces are moved always diagonally.
• Men move one cell forward.
• Men may move backward to make captures.
• Men capture by jumping over the opponent piece and landing on the next square behind, that must be empty. The opponent piece is removed from the board.
• Several captures can be made in the same move, provided that the same piece may continue jumping over opponent pieces from the destination square.

Promotion and kings

Men promote, becoming kings, when they reach the last row.

Kings may move in a different way:

• They can move always forward and backward.
• They are flying: they can move jumping over several empty squares along the diagonal line.
• They may capture an opponent piece by jumping over one or several squares, as long as there is only one opponent piece in the route and the other squares are empty.

Compulsory captures

Whenever is possible, it is compulsory to play a capturing move.

Should have several capture options, the Quantity Rule is applied: as much pieces as possible must be captured.

End of the game

The winner is the player who captures all the pieces of the opponent.

The player who blocks the remaining pieces of the opponent also wins the game.

The game ends in a draw in these cases:

• By agreement between both players.
• The same position occurs for the third time, with the same player having to move.
• 50 successive king moves are played without any capture.
• One of the players has three pieces (at least on of them is a king) against one only king, and does not reach the victory in 16 moves.
• One of the players has one king or two pieces (at least one of them is a king) against one only king, and does not reach the victory in 5 moves.

International Draughts in Ludoteka Play

You can play draughts in Ludoteka to one game. The color of the pieces is decided randomly.