Six-row diagonal draughts

Use forward diagonal moves, compulsory jumping captures and promotion to decide a two-player board game.

Logic & rule checking · Shape & spatial thinking

Players

2 players

Time

15–25 minutes

Materials and quantities

One 6×6 board, six white and six black large paper counters; mark a promoted piece with K.

Use one board per pair; a third person may audit captures without choosing moves.

Prepare

Use only the dark squares: A1, C1, E1, B2, D2 and F2 begin with white pieces; A5, C5, E5, B6, D6 and F6 begin black. White moves toward row 6, black toward row 1. Agree that this is the small-board ruleset below, not a claim to reproduce every national draughts code. Paper pieces must be large enough to handle safely.

Play

White starts. A man moves one diagonal square forward into an empty square. If any piece can jump a diagonally adjacent enemy to the empty square immediately beyond, a capture is compulsory instead of an ordinary move. Men capture forward; kings move and capture in either diagonal direction, one square or one jump at a time. Continue a capture with the same piece while another legal jump is available. If several starts or branches are available, choose any; the longest chain is not compulsory.

Worked example

A legal opening is white B2–A3, black C5–B4, then white A3×C5, jumping over B4 and removing that black piece. C5 is empty because black just left it. Merely moving diagonally onto an occupied square is not a capture. Record both the landing square and the removed square to distinguish an actual jump from a one-step move.

Finish and check

On reaching the far row, a man becomes a king and that turn ends, including after a capturing jump; do not immediately add a backward jump as a new king. A player with no pieces or no legal move at the start of their turn loses. Thirty consecutive turns without a capture or promotion end in a draw. Reset this counter after either event. The host key checks the opening but does not prescribe winning play.

Adaptation and practical limits

Leave the coordinate labels visible for a first match and allow the opponent to point out a compulsory capture before the move is finalized. Use the same stated rules throughout a match. Optional timed play changes access demands, so keep the default untimed. Do not quietly allow backward captures by men halfway through; that creates a different local rule and may change which moves are legal.

Free alternatives: Use paper or clean reused cardboard and a pencil. Copy the supplied diagrams and tables by hand; no specialist kit or purchase is needed.

Printable materials

Preview at 100% scale, with browser headers and footers off. Cut with suitable help. Keep host keys separate. This is a manual tabletop kit, not an online opponent, automatic judge or solver.