Draughts

France, twelfth century. It's played on a chessboard.

Who moves first?

You don't need an account or an email, and there's nothing to install. You'll get a link to send to the person you want to play.

How to play

The board

The board is eight squares by eight, but you only use the dark squares. The light squares stay empty all game.
You have twelve men, and they fill the three rows of dark squares nearest you.

Moving

A man steps one square diagonally forward, onto an empty square.
Men never move backwards.

Capturing

You capture by jumping an enemy piece diagonally, landing on the empty square directly beyond it.
If a capture is available you have to take it. A quiet move is only legal when nothing can be jumped.
One jump can be followed by another with the same piece. The whole chain is a single turn.

Kings

A man that reaches the far row is crowned and becomes a king.
A king moves and captures one square diagonally, forwards or backwards.
Crowning ends your turn. A man crowned in the middle of a chain of jumps stops there, even with another jump available.

Winning

You win by taking all of your opponent's pieces.
You also win if your opponent has no legal move at all. That can happen to a single piece facing three.
If each side makes fifty moves with no capture and no man moving, the game is a draw.

Which rules do we use?

We play English draughts, on an eight by eight board with twelve men each.

Different countries play draughts by different rules, and the differences are big. The size of the board, the direction men capture in and how far a king can move all change.

This isn't international draughts. That game is different in three ways that can decide a game.

The board: Ours is eight by eight with twelve men each. The international game is ten by ten with twenty.
Capturing backwards: Men here capture forwards only. In the international game they capture in both directions.
Flying kings: A king here moves one square at a time. An international king slides any distance along its diagonal.

There's one more difference, and it's from Russian draughts. Here a man crowned in the middle of a chain of jumps stops there. In Russian shashki it carries on jumping as a king.

Draughts has no single governing body, so we describe the rules we use instead of pointing to a rulebook.