Two players

Play draughts online with friends

Draughts on Game Room is the international game played across Nigeria: a 10 by 10 board, compulsory captures and kings that fly the length of a diagonal. It is a proper thinking game, and a fine way to settle who the real strategist in the family is.

How Draughts plays on Game Room

1. Join the host's night from the code or link with your name.
2. Game Room pairs players up. With an odd number, one player faces the computer.
3. White starts at the bottom and moves first.
4. On your turn, move one of your pieces. Game Room only allows legal moves, so you cannot break a rule by accident.
5. If a capture is available, you must take it, and you must take the sequence that captures the most pieces.
6. You have 30 seconds per turn. If time runs out, a move is made for you.

The rules

• The board is 10 by 10, played on the dark squares, with 20 pieces each.
• Men move one square diagonally forward.
• Men can capture forwards or backwards by jumping over an enemy piece.
• Captures are compulsory, and you must play the sequence that takes the most pieces.
• Captured pieces are removed at the end of the move and cannot be jumped twice.
• A man that ends its move on the far row becomes a king.
• Kings fly any distance along a diagonal and can capture from a distance.
• You lose if you have no pieces or no legal move. Fifty moves in a row without a capture is a draw.
• Points: win 1,000, draw 750, loss 500. At time up, the player with more material ahead wins (a king counts as three men).

Tips to win

• Control the centre of the board. Pieces there have more options.
• Because captures are compulsory, you can force your opponent into a bad exchange by offering a piece.
• Keep your back row covered for as long as you can to stop early kings.
• Once you have a king, use its long range to pressure pieces from far away.

Questions

More head to head

• Four in a RowDrop discs and line up four before your opponent does.
• Opon AyoSow and capture seeds on the Opon Ayo board.