Dutch or International Draughts.

Recently at work me and Baz have taken to playing Dutch draughts at work (also known as international draughts.) See his blog for scores. 🙂 It is a much more interesting game than what most of you know as draughts or checkers. I will try to explain the differences as well as linking some actual rules.

The first difference is that it is played on a 10×10 board with 4 rows of pieces instead of 3 (20 pieces instead of 12). Any piece can take backwards, not just the king. Taking is compulsory and if you have multiple options, you must take in the way that will allow you to capture the most pieces. (A king counts as one piece). The biggest difference though is the kings. They can move as far as they like along a diagonal in any direction instead of just one space. If they are jumping they can start any distance before the piece they are taking and end any distance after it. However, they must still follow the maximum take rule, so if they can land somewhere where they can take more pieces, they have to land there. This can lead to some serious carnage, once you get a king and makes them much more important. You win when your opponent can’t move (no pieces or completely blocked in).

I think that’s about it, see the above rules site for the rest of the rules, although I think I’ve covered most of them.