How to Play Giant Draughts

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

Giant Draughts is an oversized outdoor version of the classic two-player board game draughts, played on a large freestanding or ground-laid board with chunky, stackable discs. The scale makes it ideal for gardens, parks, and outdoor events where a standard tabletop set would simply disappear into the grass.

People love it because the rules take two minutes to explain yet the game rewards genuine thought, making it one of those rare activities that works equally well for a relaxed family afternoon or a surprisingly competitive garden tournament. It travels easily, survives the weather, and draws a crowd.

A little history

Draughts is one of the oldest strategy games in documented history, with versions recorded in ancient Egypt and described in classical Greek texts. The standardised 8x8 board and 12-a-side format widely played today was established in 16th-century France, where the game was known as Jeu de Dames, and the rules were subsequently codified in Britain as English Draughts. The giant outdoor format is a more recent development whose exact origins are unclear, but it follows the same rules as the classic tabletop game.

Setting up

1. Place the board on a flat surface so the dark squares are accessible for play. Each player should have a dark square in the bottom-left corner of their side.
2. Decide which colour each player takes. The player using the darker-coloured pieces moves first.
3. Each player places their 12 discs on the dark squares of the three rows closest to their own side of the board.
4. The two central rows of the board should be empty at the start. Check no piece sits on a light square before play begins.

How to play

1. Players alternate turns throughout the game. The player with the darker pieces takes the first turn.
2. On your turn, move one of your pieces diagonally forward to an adjacent empty dark square. Pieces may only move forward (towards the opponent's side) unless they have been crowned as a king.
3. If an opponent's piece is on a diagonal square adjacent to one of your pieces, and the square immediately beyond it (in the same diagonal 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 immediately.
4. Capturing is compulsory. If a capture is available on your turn, you must take it. If multiple captures are available, you may choose which one to take.
5. Multiple captures in a single turn: if, after completing a jump, your piece is in a position to make a further jump, you must continue jumping in the same turn. The piece travels as far as the chain of captures allows.
6. Crowning: when one of your pieces reaches the opponent's back row (the row furthest from your starting side), it is crowned and becomes a King. Place a second disc on top of it to mark it. The turn ends at this point, even if a further capture appears to be available.
7. A King may move and capture both forwards and backwards diagonally, giving it significantly greater power. All other rules of movement and compulsory capture apply to Kings.
8. A piece may not jump over one of your own pieces under any circumstances.
9. Play continues until one player has captured all of the opponent's pieces, or until a player on their turn has no legal move available.

Winning and scoring

You win by either capturing all 12 of your opponent's pieces, or by positioning your pieces so that your opponent has no legal move on their turn (all remaining pieces are blocked). The blocked player loses. There is no scoring system across multiple moves within a single game; it is a win or lose result. For a longer session, players often agree to play a best-of-three or best-of-five series before sitting down.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns compulsory capture. In standard English Draughts rules, if a capture is available you must take it. You cannot choose a non-capturing move simply because it suits your strategy better. Where two or more captures are available, you are free to choose which one you take, but you must take one of them. If a player moves without capturing when a capture was available, the opponent may require the move to be retracted and the correct move played instead.

A second frequent edge case involves the King on crowning. If a piece reaches the back row mid-chain during a multiple-jump sequence, the turn ends and the piece is crowned immediately. It does not continue jumping in the same turn, even if a further capture is now available. That next capture becomes available on the newly crowned King's next turn. Pieces that land on the back row but are not yet crowned cannot move backwards and should not be played as Kings until they have been officially crowned at the end of their arrival turn.

How to win more often

• Control the centre early. Pieces in the middle of the board have more options and restrict your opponent's movement more effectively than pieces hugging the edges.
• Keep your back row intact for as long as possible. Leaving pieces on your back rank prevents your opponent from crowning easily and costs you nothing while your forward pieces are active.
• Trade pieces only when it benefits you. Accepting a capture that lets you crown a piece, or that breaks up a strong block of opponent pieces, is usually worthwhile. Trading for no positional gain is not.
• Aim to crown pieces quickly. A King's ability to move in all four diagonal directions makes it roughly twice as powerful as an ordinary piece. Two Kings against two ordinary pieces is usually a winning advantage.
• Watch for forced-capture traps. Deliberately placing a piece so your opponent must capture it, only for that capture to set up a larger counter-capture for you, is the most effective tactical pattern in the game.

Variations

Best of Series

Rather than a single game, players agree before starting to play a fixed number of games (typically three or five) with the overall winner being the first to take the majority. Colours are swapped after each game so neither player has a permanent advantage from moving first.

Flying Kings

In this popular continental variant, a King may move any number of squares diagonally in a single move, rather than just one square. It may also capture a piece any number of squares away provided the squares between the King and the target, and the landing square beyond, are all empty. This makes Kings considerably more powerful and speeds up endgames significantly.

Huffing

An older rule, now largely obsolete but still encountered in informal play, allows a player to remove (huff) an opponent's piece from the board as a penalty if that opponent failed to make a compulsory capture on the previous turn, instead of forcing the move to be retracted. Both players should agree before the game whether huffing is in play, as it significantly changes the stakes of every turn.

Pool Draughts

In Pool Draughts, captured pieces are not discarded but set aside by the capturing player. When a player's piece is crowned, they return one of the captured opponent pieces back onto the board on any vacant square in the opponent's back row, rather than stacking a disc. This keeps piece counts higher for longer and produces a more attritional, tactical game suited to players who want extended play time from their set.

Giant Draughts: frequently asked questions