Italian Draughts

Origin

Board and pieces

Men´s moves

Kings moves

Capture compulsory

Particularities about the end of the game

play by yourself

play by yourself

Origin

There are many draughts games, all of them with their own rules. Here are explained only the specific aspects of the this game. You can learn the rules that are common to all the draughts games at the Draughts games common characteristics and rules page.

This variant is practised in Italy, where it is as popular as International draughts.

Board and pieces

8x8 draughtboard with lower right black corner. Each player starts with 12 men (white and black) placed on the first 3 rows. Dark squares are used.

Men´s moves

They move and capture only diagonally forwards.

Kings moves

They move and capture diagonally forwards or backwards, but they can´t jump over empty cells. So the only difference with men is the option to move backwards. Unlike the remaining variants, Anglo-American and Italian draughts do not allow the flying king.

Capture compulsory

The significant differences between Checkers and Italian draughts are related with the rules regarding captures. Men can´t never jump over kings. There is also a complex rule applied to force certain capture moves:

Maximum capture compulsory: if there are two or more different chances to make capture, it is compulsory to make the move that captures the maximum amount of the opponent´s pieces
Between different maximum capture options, captures made with kings have higher priority than captures made with men
Quality capture compulsory: if there are still two or more different chances with the same priority, it is compulsory to capture the maximum amount of kings
Finally, the last criterion is the obligation to choose the move that first captures one king in the sequence of jumps

Particularities about the end of the game

The game ends in a draw after doing 80 king moves in a row without advancing any man nor doing any capture

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