Europe Chess Champion - GB - Page 25
5
Checkers
5.1
How to play checkers
5.1.1
The Checkers board and pieces
Checkers (or Draughts) is played on an 8x8 chequered board,
but the pieces only move on squares of one colour. Each of the
opponents (“Black” and “White”) starts with 12 pieces,
arranged like this:
The players take it in turns to move one piece at a time. Black
moves first.
The object of the game is to leave your opponent
without any moves.
This is usually achieved by capturing all his
pieces, but you also win if you immobilize them all by blocking
them.
Sometimes neither player is able to win. This is often the case when only a few pieces remain, the
same number on each side.
5.1.2
The man and how it moves
At the start, each of the 24 pieces is called a
man.
Its ordinary move is one square diagonally
forward, onto a vacant square. In the starting position (e.g.), the black man on c3 may move to b4
or d4. In reply, White may move his man from b6 to either a5 or c5; or his man on h6 may go to
g5; etc.
5.1.3
Capturing enemy pieces
A man captures an enemy piece by moving
two
squares
forward along the diagonal, jumping over the enemy to land on
the vacant square beyond. The enemy piece is removed from
the board.
In Checkers, if you can make a capture, you must do
so.
In this position Black has the choice of two captures:
The man on c3 can capture the white man on d4 by
jumping over it and landing on e5.
The man on e3 can capture the same white man by
jumping to c5.
In either case, the man making the capture will be captured in turn. Then (as you can see), each
player will capture one more man.
