Draughts

How to play draughts

Draughts, called checkers in America, is one of the oldest board games in the world and a favourite across Kenya and East Africa. This version follows the English and American rules, which are simple to learn and deep enough to keep you hooked for years.

The goal

Win by capturing all of your opponent's pieces, or by leaving them with no legal move on their turn.

Setting up

The game is played on the 32 dark squares of an 8×8 board. Each player starts with 12 pieces on the three rows closest to them. Coral always moves first.

Moving

Ordinary pieces, called men, move one square diagonally forward onto an empty dark square. Tap a piece to see where it can go, then tap a glowing square to move.

Capturing

If an opponent's piece sits diagonally next to yours and the square behind it is empty, you jump over it and remove it from the board. Captures are compulsory: if any of your pieces can capture, you must capture. The pieces that can jump will pulse red to remind you. If a piece lands where it can jump again, it must keep going in the same turn, which is how you pull off double and triple jumps.

Kings

When a man reaches the far side of the board it is crowned a king and gets a crown on top. Kings can move and capture diagonally both forwards and backwards, which makes them far more powerful. A man that is crowned during a capture ends its turn there.

Draws

If 80 moves in a row (40 by each player) pass without any capture or crowning, the game is declared a draw.

Tips to win more games

• Hold the centre. Pieces in the middle of the board have more options and are harder to trap.
• Guard your back row. Keeping a couple of men at home stops your opponent from getting easy kings.
• Use forced captures. Because captures are compulsory, you can offer one piece to drag an opponent into a position where you jump two.
• Trade when ahead. If you have more pieces, swapping one-for-one makes your advantage bigger.
• Get kings early. A single king can hunt down several men in the endgame.

Playing online with friends

Choose Online Challenge, create a room and send the five-letter code or WhatsApp link to a friend. You can play a friendly game, where the winner earns 20 Hype Points, or stake Hype Points that the winner takes from the loser. If your opponent disconnects for more than a minute during the game, you can claim the win. Hype Points are free and have no cash value; they exist for fun and for the leaderboard.