Spanish Draughts rules

Board and pieces

• It is played on the white squares of a 8x8 checkerboard.
• Both sides have 12 men (white and black), initially placed on the 3 lowest ranks of the board.
• The player with white pieces starts the game.

Moves and captures

• Pieces are moved always diagonally.
• Men move usually one cell forward. They can never move backward.
• Men capture by jumping over the opponent piece and landing on the next square behind, that must be empty. The opponent piece is removed from the board.
• Several captures can be made in the same move, provided that the same piece may continue jumping over opponent pieces from the destination square.

Promotion and kings

Men promote, becoming kings, when they reach the last row.

Kings may move in a different way:

• They can move also backward.
• They are flying: they can move jumping over several empty squares along the diagonal line.
• They may capture an opponent piece by jumping over one or several squares, as long as there is only one opponent piece in the route and the other squares are empty.

Compulsory captures

Whenever is possible, it is compulsory to play a capturing move.

Should have several capture options, these rules are followed:

• Quantity Rule: as many pieces as possible must be captured.
• Quality Rule: between capture moves that take the same amount of pieces, as much kings as possible must be captured.

End of the game

The winner is the player who captures all the pieces of the opponent.

The player who blocks the remaining pieces of the opponent also wins the game.

The game ends in a draw in these cases:

• By agreement between both players.
• The same position occurs for the third time, with the same player having to move.
• 40 successive king moves are played (20 each side) without any capture.
• One of the players has three kings, one of them in the main diagonal (8 squares), against one only king, and does not reach the victory in 13 moves.

Spanish Draughts Modes

Ludoteka offers three modes to play spanish draughts online:

Single Game Spanish Draughts Play

Just the explained rules are applied in this mode.

Spanish Draughts Match Play

Spanish draughts games between experienced players very frequently end in a draw because they know secure sequences of initial moves that prevent them from making mistakes.

In relation to this situation, the match mode brings two new elements:

• 4 games are played. Victory scores 1 point, the draw scores half point. Alternating colors are used in each game. If one of the players scores more than two points in the first three games, there is no need to play the fourth game.
• The last two games are played using the same automatic opening: the first move of each player is randomized between 43 balanced possibilities.

Giveaway Spanish Draughts Play

As you can guess, the goal is to lose: the winner is the player who runs out of pieces.