How to play Draughts

Setup and moving

Kontest plays International draughts unless the game is set up as English. Twenty men each, on the dark squares of the four rows nearest you, on a 10×10 board. Play is only ever on dark squares. The first player of a series moves first in game one, and it alternates.

A man moves one square diagonally forward to an empty square.

The start. You play from the bottom.

Captures, backwards too

A man captures by jumping an opponent’s piece next to it onto the empty square just beyond, forwards or backwards. If any capture is available you must capture: a quiet move is not allowed while a capture is on the board. After a capture, if the piece can capture again from where it landed it keeps going, in the same turn.

The black man is behind yours. A man may still take it.

The biggest capture is compulsory

When there is more than one way to capture, you must take the one that captures the most pieces. A king counts the same as a man. Between captures of the same size you choose. The pieces taken stay on the board until the whole capture is done: they can’t be jumped twice, and they block the way meanwhile.

The man on the left could take one; the man on the right can take two, so it must.

On Kontest you can tap each landing square in turn, or, when only one path leads there, tap the last one and the whole capture is played.

Crowning and flying kings

A man is crowned a king when its move ends on the far row. Passing over the far row in the middle of a capture does not crown it.

A capture that touches the far row and comes back.

Kings fly: they move any distance along an empty diagonal, forwards or backwards, and capture a piece any distance away on a diagonal, landing on any empty square beyond it.

The black man is four squares away, with empty squares behind it.

Winning and draws

You win when the other player has no pieces left, or no legal move on their turn. In International, if 25 moves each (50 in a row) are made with kings only and nothing is captured, the game is a draw. Either player can also offer a draw.

Play International against KBot. The biggest capture is enforced.

English draughts (8×8)

Set up a game as English for the 8×8 game: twelve men each; men move and capture forwards only; kings move and capture one square in any direction; a capture is compulsory but you may choose any one; a capture chain must be finished; and a man crowned in the middle of a capture stops there. Eighty moves in a row (forty each) without a capture is a draw.

Two black men, each with an empty square behind it.

Play English against KBot. Captures are enforced, chains too.

On Kontest

Series. A game can be one game or a best of 3, 5 or 7: a win is a point, a draw half each, and the first past half wins the match. Who moves first swaps every game, against KBot too.

Start between games. After each game both players press Start for the next. You have the clock’s base time to do it (3 minutes on 3 + 2, an hour on an hour a move). Not pressing in time loses that game. If nobody presses Start, the match ends there: the leader wins it, and a level score is a draw.

Clocks. Either a time per move (from a minute to a day), or a time for the whole game, with or without an increment added after each move (“3 + 2” is three minutes each plus two seconds a move). Run out and you lose. The default is an hour a move.

Draws and resigning. You can offer a draw or resign at any time; in a series you choose whether it is for this game or the whole match, and the other player sees which. At a table of three or more you leave instead: you’re placed last, and the rest play on.

KBot. In your own chat you can play KBot, on Normal (it plays properly) or Easy (it makes mistakes). Games against KBot don’t count towards your stats or the leaderboards.

Draughts