International draughts rules
International draughts is played on a 10×10 board and is the main tournament game in the Netherlands, France, much of Africa and elsewhere. Its world body is the FMJD.
The board and pieces
- A 10×10 board, played on the dark squares, with a dark square in each player's left-hand corner. Each player starts with 20 men on the dark squares of their first four rows.
- White moves first.
Moving
- A man moves one square diagonally forward.
- A king is a flying king: it moves any number of empty squares along a diagonal, forward or backward.
Capturing
- Men capture both forward and backward, by jumping an adjacent enemy piece onto the empty square beyond.
- A king captures at a distance: along a diagonal it can jump an enemy piece any number of squares away, as long as the squares between are empty, and land on any empty square beyond it. If it can carry on capturing from one of those squares, it must land there.
- Capturing is compulsory, and you must take the largest number of pieces possible. Kings and men count the same. If two sequences take the same number, you choose.
- Captured pieces are removed only when the whole move is over, and no piece can be jumped twice in one move.
Kings
A man is crowned when it ends its move on the far row. If it only passes through the far row during a multi-capture and finishes elsewhere, it stays a man.
Winning and draws
- You win when your opponent can't move on their turn.
- We call a draw when the same position comes up for the third time with the same player to move, or after 25 moves each with only kings moving and no capture. With few pieces left against a lone king, the endgame rule applies: three pieces including a king get 16 moves to win; two pieces, or king against king, get 5.