How to Play Alquerque

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Alquerque is a two-player abstract strategy game played on a 5x5 grid of intersecting lines. Each player commands 12 pieces and wins by capturing every one of the opponent's pieces or leaving them with no legal move. The game rewards forward planning and spatial awareness without requiring any luck whatsoever.

Players love Alquerque for its simplicity of setup paired with genuine tactical depth. Games are quick enough to fit into a lunch break yet involved enough to hold the attention of serious strategy enthusiasts. It is typically played on a dedicated wooden or printed board at home, in schools, or at games clubs.

A little history

Alquerque is widely documented as one of the oldest known board games. A game board matching its grid pattern was found carved into the temple at Kurna in Egypt, dating to around 1400 BCE, and similar boards have been found at several ancient sites across the Middle East. The game is described by name in the thirteenth-century Spanish manuscript "Libro de los Juegos" (Book of Games), commissioned by Alfonso X of Castile, which remains one of the clearest early written records of its rules. Its broader origins are unclear, though it is traditionally regarded as an ancestor of draughts.

Setting up

1. Place the board so the grid of 25 points is accessible to both players.
2. One player takes the 12 light pieces, the other takes the 12 dark pieces.
3. Light pieces occupy all 12 points on the two rows nearest to the light player, plus the two leftmost points of the middle row.
4. Dark pieces occupy all 12 points on the two rows nearest to the dark player, plus the two rightmost points of the middle row.
5. The central point of the middle row is left empty at the start of play.
6. Decide who moves first, traditionally by agreement or by lot.

How to play

1. Players alternate turns throughout the game; you may not pass your turn.
2. On your turn, move one of your pieces along any marked line to an adjacent empty point. Pieces may move in any direction the lines permit, including diagonally where diagonal lines are marked.
3. If an opponent's piece is on an adjacent point and the point directly beyond it (along the same line) is empty, you must capture by jumping over the opponent's piece to the empty point. The captured piece is removed from the board immediately.
4. Capturing is compulsory. If a capture is available, you must make it. You may not make a plain move instead.
5. After completing a capture, if your piece can make a further capture from its new position, you must continue capturing in the same turn. This chain continues until no further captures are possible.
6. When multiple captures are available at the start of a turn, you may choose which capturing piece to move, but once a piece begins a capture chain you must complete the maximum number of captures available from that piece's path.
7. A piece that reaches the opponent's back row gains no special status; there is no promotion in standard Alquerque.
8. Play continues until one player has captured all the opponent's pieces, or until one player has no legal move on their turn.

Winning and scoring

The winner is the player who captures all 12 of the opponent's pieces, leaving them with none on the board. Alternatively, if a player has pieces remaining but no legal move available on their turn, that player loses immediately. There is no scoring system in standard play; each game produces a single winner. Some informal versions count remaining pieces to rank outcomes when games are played as a series, but this is not part of the standard rules.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns the compulsory capture rule. If a player makes a plain move when a capture was available, the standard ruling in most documented versions is that the opponent may either insist the move is taken back and the correct capture made, or accept the move as played and remove the offending piece from the board as a penalty. Agree which ruling you will use before play begins. When multiple captures are available, the player chooses freely which piece to use, but the chosen piece must then complete every consecutive capture available to it along one continuous path before the turn ends.

A second common edge case is stalemate: if a player cannot move because all their pieces are blocked but not captured, they lose immediately. This outcome is rare on the standard board but can arise in the endgame. There is no draw condition in standard Alquerque; if both players claim they are blocked simultaneously, which is practically impossible under the rules, the position should be reviewed from the last legal move.

How to win more often

• Control the centre early. The central point and the middle row give your pieces access to the greatest number of lines and make it harder for the opponent to manoeuvre.
• Prioritise chains. A move that sets up a two- or three-jump capture next turn is almost always better than a move that wins one piece immediately.
• Do not advance all your pieces at once. Leaving a solid rear formation makes it harder for the opponent to complete long capture chains through your side of the board.
• Force the compulsory capture to your advantage. Position pieces so that the opponent must jump in a direction that exposes their pieces to your next capture.
• Count liberties before moving. Before committing to a move, check how many points each of your pieces can reach. Pieces with only one or two options are vulnerable to being trapped.

Variations

Capture-Most Compulsory

In this variant, when multiple capture paths are available on a single turn, the player is required to choose the path that results in the greatest number of captures rather than choosing freely. This rule increases tactical complexity significantly and is recorded in several historical descriptions of the game.

Short Alquerque

Played on the same board but with only the front row and middle row filled at the start, giving each player eight pieces. This produces a faster, sharper game that is well suited to younger players or to those learning the capture mechanics for the first time.

No Compulsory Capture

A simplified version in which capturing is optional rather than mandatory. Players may make a plain move even when a capture is available. This removes much of the tactical tension but makes the game accessible to very young children who find the compulsory rule difficult to track consistently.

Drawn Game Allowed

Some modern players add an explicit draw condition: if the same position is repeated three times in a single game, the game is declared drawn. This prevents the rare situation where neither player can make progress without being captured, and is a reasonable house rule for competitive series play.

Alquerque: frequently asked questions