How to Play Draughts: Rules, Setup and Kings

Draughts is a two-player strategy game played on the dark squares of an 8x8 chequered board. Each player starts with 12 pieces, moves diagonally forward one square at a time, and captures by jumping over an opponent's piece. A piece that reaches the far row is crowned a king and can move backwards. The winner captures or blocks every opposing piece.

That is the game in a nutshell. What follows is the full walkthrough: how to set the board up, how the forced-capture rule works, how chain jumps play out step by step, and exactly what a king can do that an ordinary piece cannot. There are many regional variations of draughts around the world, so to keep things simple this guide sticks to the standard British rules, the version you will find in most boxed sets in the UK. Learn this version and you can sit down with almost anyone here and play.

What Is Draughts? (And Is It the Same as Checkers?)

Draughts is the British name for the game Americans call checkers. Same board, same pieces, same rules in the standard form. If you have ever watched someone play checkers in a film, you have watched draughts.

The game is played by two people on a chequered board of 64 squares, the same board used for chess. Only the dark squares are ever used. Each player controls a set of flat, round pieces in a single colour, traditionally one player takes the darker pieces and one the lighter.

What makes draughts such a good game to teach is how little it asks up front. There are only a handful of rules, a turn takes seconds, and a child can grasp the basics in one sitting. The depth comes later, from planning captures two or three moves ahead and from knowing when to sacrifice a piece to win two back. That gentle slope from simple to strategic is why draughts get passed down through families rather than played once and shelved.

How Do You Set Up a Draughts Board?

Setting up takes under a minute. Here is the starting position:

1. Place the board so a dark square sits in the bottom-left corner for each player. Both players should see a dark square nearest their left hand.

2. Each player takes 12 pieces** of their colour.

3. Fill the dark squares of your three nearest rows. Each row has four dark squares, so 12 pieces fill three rows exactly, leaving the two middle rows of the board empty.

4. The player with the darker pieces moves first. After that, players alternate turns, one move per turn.

That empty two-row gap in the middle is the battleground. The opening moves of any game of draughts are about advancing into that space without handing your opponent an easy jump.

If you want a board and pieces ready to go, the John Adams Draughts set gives you everything the rules on this page need.

How Do Draughts Pieces Move?

Ordinary pieces, sometimes called men, follow three simple movement rules:

• Diagonal only. A piece moves one square diagonally. It never moves straight forwards, sideways or backwards along a row or column.
• Dark squares only. Because every move is diagonal, pieces stay on the dark squares for the whole game. The light squares are never used.
• Forwards only. An ordinary piece moves diagonally towards the opponent's side of the board. It cannot retreat. Only kings, which we cover below, can move backwards.

A piece can only move into an empty square. If the diagonal square ahead is occupied by one of your own pieces, that path is blocked. If it is occupied by an opponent's piece, you may be able to jump it, which brings us to captures.

How Do Captures Work in Draughts?

Capturing is the heart of draughts, and it has one rule that surprises new players: capturing is compulsory.

Here is how a capture works:

1. Your piece sits diagonally next to an opponent's piece.

2. The square directly beyond that opponent's piece, on the same diagonal, is empty.

3. You jump your piece over the opponent's piece into that empty square.

4. The jumped piece is removed from the board.

Now the forced-capture rule. If a capture is available on your turn, you must take it. You cannot make a quiet ordinary move instead. If more than one capture is available, you may choose which one to take, but you cannot decline to capture altogether.

This rule is what gives draughts its bite. It means you can deliberately offer a piece to your opponent, knowing they are forced to take it, and set up a bigger capture of your own in return. Sacrifices are not just possible in draughts, they are the core of good play. Once children spot their first two-for-one trap, the game changes for them completely.

How Do Multiple Jumps Work in Draughts?

If your jumping piece lands in a position where another capture is immediately available, you must keep jumping. All the jumps happen in a single turn, and every jumped piece comes off the board. This is a chain capture, and it is how games swing suddenly.

Here is a worked example. Imagine your piece sits with an opponent's piece diagonally ahead of it, and an empty square beyond that.

1. First jump. You leap over the opponent's piece and land in the empty square. Remove the jumped piece.

2. Check the new position. From your landing square, another opponent's piece sits diagonally ahead, again with an empty square beyond it.

3. Second jump. Because the capture is available, you must take it. Jump the second piece and remove it too.

4. Check again. No further captures are available from the new landing square, so your turn ends there. You have taken two pieces in one move.

A chain can carry on through three, four or more pieces if the board allows it, zigzagging across the dark squares as long as each landing spot offers a fresh jump. Two things to remember: an ordinary piece can only chain-capture in forward directions, and you cannot jump the same piece twice in one turn.

Watching for chain-jump opportunities, both yours and your opponent's, is the single biggest skill in draughts. Before every move, scan the diagonals and ask what you are leaving open.

How Do You Get a King in Draughts?

When one of your ordinary pieces reaches the far row of the board, the row where your opponent's pieces started, it is crowned a king. To mark it, place a second piece of the same colour on top. Most boxed sets include spare pieces, or you can use one already captured.

Kings play by upgraded rules:

- A king moves diagonally forwards or backwards. It is the only piece in the game that can retreat.

- A king captures in any diagonal direction too, jumping forwards or backwards, and it can chain jumps in both directions within a single turn.

- A king still moves one square at a time. In British draughts a king does not fly across the board along a diagonal. It is more mobile than an ordinary piece, not faster.

One timing detail: if a piece reaches the back row mid-way through a chain of jumps, the move ends there. It is crowned, but it cannot continue capturing as a king until its next turn.

Kings are worth protecting and worth racing for. In most games, the first player to crown a king takes control of the endgame, because a king can chase pieces that ordinary men cannot.

How Do You Win at Draughts?

There are two ways to win a game of draughts:

1. Capture every one of your opponent's pieces.This is the most common finish. Once the last opposing piece leaves the board, the game is over.

2. Block your opponent so they cannot move. If it is your opponent's turn and none of their remaining pieces has a legal move, you win, even though pieces are still on the board.

If neither player can force a win, for example when both sides are down to a lone king shadowing the other, players usually agree a draw. Shake hands, reset the board, and play again. A full game typically runs quickly enough that "best of three" is a very reasonable proposal, and often how the real contest gets decided.

Why Draughts Still Earns a Place at Family Game Night

Draughts has three things going for it that few games can match at once. It sets up in under a minute, the rules fit in a single conversation, and the strategy runs deep enough that adults never have to play down to let children compete. A seven-year-old who has learned to spot a double jump can genuinely beat a grown-up who is not paying attention, and that is exactly what a mixed-age game should offer.

That combination makes it a natural pick for family game night, a rainy afternoon, or as a two-player option when the bigger group games have wound down. It is also a lovely gift for a child at the age where they are ready for their first proper strategy game, because it is one they will not outgrow.

If this guide has you ready to play, the John Adams Draughts set covers everything above. You can also pair draughts with other quick two-player favourites in our Family Games Collection, or browse more classic Games and Puzzles to build out the shelf for your next game night.