International Draughts - How to play the game

How to Play:

The main points of play in a game of draughts:

1. Beginning of the game.
2. Middle of the game.
3. Finally the ending of the game.

The beginning of the game:

1. The playing pieces are placed on the board, so that it looks like the board above.
2. One player picks two pieces off the board and randomly moves them from hand to hand behind his or her back, so the other player cannot see which piece is in which hand.
3. Now the person who picked up the pieces shows their closed fists the other player, who selects one of the hands and the hand is opened, revealing the colour of the piece.
4. The pieces are put back on the board, with the person who selected a coloured piece, having all the pieces of that colour.

The middle of the game:

1. White always starts with the first move in draughts, then black makes a move and then white and so on.
   The pieces move one space diagonally across the board.
2. If one piece moves directly in front of an oppenent's piece, without any pieces behind it, the opponent takes that piece, by landing on the space after that piece.
3. Pieces can only move backwards by taking.
4. Crowning occurs when a piece gets to one of the furthest spaces on the board, on the side of the oppontent. Another piece that has been taken, will be put on top of this piece. It can now move backwards and take many pieces that have gaps between them, and at least one unoccupied space after them.

The end of the game:

1. There are a number of ways a game can be won, the least technical method being the taking all the opponent's pices. Another way of winning is by blocking the movements of the opponent's pieces completely
2. Some games never get won or lost, they are called draws, or Remise, these endings are caused by both players having only kings left on the board

Where to play:

Games of draughts can be played on a draught board, with pieces, or online, on sites such as IG gamecenter.com or draughts.org, games.co.za, playok.com, and many others.
There are also computer games such as KingsRow and software from the World Draughts Federation.

Notation of the game:

The board is numbered from 1 to 50, only the dark squares of the board are played on. The player with the dark pieces has the side with the 5 on the left and the 1 on the right side, his or her opponent would have the 50 on the right and 46 on the left.

Here is an example game, with notation in French.
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