How to Play Draughts

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

Draughts is a two-player strategy board game played on the dark squares of an 8x8 chequered board. Each player commands twelve pieces and wins by capturing every opposing piece or blocking the opponent so completely that they cannot move. The rules are simple enough to teach in minutes, yet the game rewards forward planning, spatial awareness, and patience in a way that keeps players coming back.

It is a staple of kitchen tables, school common rooms, and family game nights across the UK. Because it requires no reading ability and only basic counting, it works well across a wide age range, and a game rarely outstays its welcome, usually wrapping up in well under an hour.

A little history

Draughts as played in Britain today descends from a form of the game documented in 16th-century France, where it was known as Jeu de dames. The rule requiring compulsory capture is recorded as a French innovation from around that period, and the game spread steadily across Europe over the following two centuries. Its deeper origins are unclear: earlier board games combining diagonal movement with capturing appear in medieval European manuscripts, and some historians trace loose connections to ancient games, but the direct lineage before the 16th century is not firmly established. The standardised English rules, played on a 64-square board with twelve pieces per side, have been stable and widely recognised across Britain for several hundred years.

Setting up

1. Place the board so that each player has a dark corner square on their left-hand side.
2. Each player takes 12 pieces of one colour.
3. The player using the darker-coloured pieces sets up first. Place all 12 pieces on the dark squares of the three rows closest to you.
4. Your opponent places their 12 pieces on the dark squares of the three rows closest to them.
5. The two middle rows of the board remain empty at the start. The player using the darker pieces moves first.

How to play

1. Players alternate turns; you must move on every turn if any legal move exists.
2. Pieces (called men) move diagonally forward only, one square at a time, onto an empty dark square.
3. Capturing: if an opponent's piece occupies a square diagonally adjacent to yours, and the square immediately beyond it in the same direction is empty, you must jump over the opponent's piece and land on that empty square. The captured piece is removed from the board.
4. Capturing is compulsory. If a capture is available on your turn, you must take it. You may not make a non-capturing move instead.
5. Multiple captures in one turn: after landing from a capture, if your piece can immediately capture again from its new position, it must do so. Continue until no further capture is possible. This entire sequence counts as one turn.
6. When a man reaches any square on the opponent's back row (the row farthest from you), it is promoted to King. Place a second piece of the same colour on top of it, or use any agreed marker, to show its status. Promotion ends your turn, even if a capture would otherwise be available from that square.
7. Kings move diagonally in any direction, forward or backward, one square at a time. Kings capture by jumping diagonally in any direction.
8. A King that completes a capture may continue capturing in any direction, including reversing the direction of travel, as long as each jump clears an unvisited opponent's piece onto an empty square.
9. A piece that has already been jumped over once in a multi-jump sequence cannot be jumped a second time in the same turn, even if it has not yet been removed.
10. Captured pieces are removed from the board only after the entire multi-jump sequence for that turn is complete.
11. Play continues until one player has won or the game is declared a draw.

Winning and scoring

You win by capturing all 12 of your opponent's pieces, or by leaving your opponent in a position where they have pieces remaining but no legal move available on their turn. If neither player can force a win after a prolonged period of play, both players may agree to declare the game a draw. Some organised play uses a specific move-count rule to enforce a draw, but for informal games a mutual agreement is standard.

The fine points

The most common dispute arises from the huffing tradition. In older British rules, if a player failed to take a compulsory capture, the opponent could 'huff' (remove) the offending piece as a penalty instead of insisting the capture be made. Under modern standard rules, huffing is not used: the opponent must point out the missed capture and require the move to be replayed correctly. It is worth agreeing before the game which convention you are using, particularly with players who learned from older sets or older family members.

A second regular sticking point involves promotion during a multi-jump. If a man reaches the back row mid-sequence, promotion ends the turn immediately. The piece does not continue jumping as a King in the same turn, even if a King's capture would be available from that square. This rule catches experienced players out more often than beginners. On the question of which captures must be taken when several are available, standard English draughts imposes no obligation to take the largest possible capture: any valid capture satisfies the compulsory-capture rule.

How to win more often

• Control the centre early. Pieces in the central four squares exert the most diagonal reach and restrict your opponent's options most effectively.
• Keep your back row intact for as long as possible. Your back row pieces prevent your opponent from easily promoting men to Kings, so abandoning them early is costly.
• Trade pieces when you are ahead. If you have more pieces than your opponent, even exchanges maintain your advantage. If you are behind, avoid trades and try to complicate the position.
• Plan two or three moves ahead before capturing. A capture that looks good often sets up a counter-capture for your opponent. Check where you will land and what your opponent can do from there.
• Aim to King first. Having even one King against an opponent with only men is usually a decisive advantage, so prioritise advancing a piece to the back row when the path is relatively safe.

Variations

Pool Draughts

In Pool Draughts, captured pieces are not permanently removed. Instead they are returned to the capturing player's hand and re-entered onto the board from the back row one at a time on subsequent turns. The game ends when one player runs out of pieces to re-enter and loses all remaining pieces on the board. This variant tends to produce longer games and places greater emphasis on position than on simple piece count.

Losing Draughts (Misere Draughts)

The objective is reversed: the first player to lose all their pieces, or to have no legal move, wins. Captures remain compulsory, which creates a very different strategic challenge as players try to engineer positions where they are forced to give their pieces away. The game is sometimes called Suicide Draughts or Give-Away Draughts and makes a good change of pace once standard rules are well understood.

Turkish Draughts

Played on the same 8x8 board but using all 64 squares rather than only the dark ones, and with pieces moving and capturing orthogonally (forwards and sideways) rather than diagonally. Each player starts with 16 pieces arranged on their second and third rows. Kings may move any number of squares in a straight line, making them considerably more powerful than in the English game. The compulsory-capture rule still applies.

Frisian Draughts

A Dutch variant played on a 10x10 board with 20 pieces per side. Pieces capture both diagonally and orthogonally, and Kings may move any number of squares along a line. The larger board and orthogonal captures produce a significantly more complex game, popular in the Netherlands, and a useful next step for players who find the standard game too quickly mastered.

Draughts: frequently asked questions