The board game of Czech draughts is played, as its name suggests, in the territory formerly occupied by the Czechoslovak Republic

Czechoslovak Republic

Czechoslovak Republic was the official name of Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1938 and between 1945 and 1960. See*First Czechoslovak Republic*Second Czechoslovak Republic...

 (present day Czech

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 and Slovak Republics). It is governed by the Czech Draughts

Draughts

Draughts is a group of abstract strategy board games between two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over the enemy's pieces. Draughts developed from alquerque...

 Federation.

Rules

The draughtsboard has eight ranks and eight files. Players each have twelve draughtsmen on opposite sides of the board, arranged on black squares only, in three rows. Men move one square diagonally forward, and can not capture their own pieces. Once a man has reached the rank of the board furthest from the player to which it belongs, it becomes a king. Kings move diagonally forward and back, any number of positions.

Captures are mandatory in Czech draughts. Should a man be found neighbouring an opposing piece behind which is an empty position, the player is compelled to attain this empty position and remove the opposing man from the board. Should a player be able to capture either with a man or a king, he must do so with the king.

Should a player be able to perform multiple captures, he has the choice of capturing one piece or the entire line; he can not capture a partial line. If multiple captures are performed, the pieces are removed from the board en masse when the capture is concluded.

A player who can not move, either because he has lost all of his pieces, or because no legal move remains, has lost. The game is a draw when it is theoretically impossible (i.e. with perfect play) to capture any of the opponent's pieces.

A misere game, as with other competitions, is known, where the object is to lose all one's pieces.

Regional Differences

Although Czech draughts is itself a regional variant of the draughts game, the version played in the Slovak Republic is slightly different in that each player begins with only two ranks of men, and that the huffing rule is enforced: if a piece that must capture does not do so, the opponent may, at his option, take it before his own move. Furthermore, if a player has no legal moves, but does have men on the board, the game is a draw.

See also

• International draughts
  International draughts
  International draughts is a board game, one of the variants of draughts. It is played on a 10×10 board with alternatingly dark and light squares, of which only the 50 dark ones are used. There are two players on opposite sides, with 20 pieces each, light for one player and dark for the other...
  
  
• English draughts
  English draughts
  English draughts or checkers , also called American checkers or straight checkers or in Israel damka, is a form of draughts board game. Unlike international draughts, it is played on an eight by eight squared board with twelve pieces on each side...
  
  
• Pool checkers
  Pool checkers
  Pool checkers, also called "American pool checkers", is a variant of draughts, mainly played in the southeastern United States.-Basic rules:...
  
  
• Russian checkers
  Russian checkers
  Russian draughts is a variant of draughts played in some parts in Russia and some parts of the former USSR, as well as parts of Eastern Europe and Israel.-Rules:...
  
  
• Italian draughts
  Italian draughts
  Italian draughts is a variant of the Draughts family played mainly in Italy and Northern Africa. It is a two-handed game played on a board consisting of sixty-four squares, thirty-two white and thirty-two black. There are twenty-four pieces: twelve white and twelve black...
  
  
• Turkish draughts
  Turkish draughts
  Turkish draughts is a variant of draughts played in Turkey.On an 8x8 board, 16 men are lined up on each side, in two rows, skipping the furthest back....
  
  
• Draughts
  Draughts
  Draughts is a group of abstract strategy board games between two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over the enemy's pieces. Draughts developed from alquerque...