Shashki is the traditional Checkers game of Russia and the parentgame of Bashni, the first column checkers game. It came to Russia three, maybe four hundred years ago and quickly became the game of the people. Even after the rise of Chess, Shashki continues to be a popular game with a tournament scene for both Shashki and its variants.

Rules
The diagram shows the board and the pieces in initial position. There are two players, black and white. White begins. Players move, and must move, in turn.
The rules mention men and kings. A king is a promoted man. If the difference doesn't matter, they may also mention pieces, for instance 'the number of pieces on the board'.

Moving Capture precedes over a non-capturing move. If the player to move has no capture available, he has two options: Moving a man Moving a king A man moves diagonally forwards to an adjacent vacant square. If it reaches the back rank it is crowned to king and this marks the end of the move (in a capture this may not be the case). A king moves diagonally forwards or backwards along any number of vacant square.

All pieces thus remain on the dark colored squares. From here on 'forwards' or 'backwards' will be understood as 'diagonally'.

Capture
Capture precedes over a non-capturing move. If the player to move can make a capture, he must do so.

• A man captures an opponent's piece, man or king, by jumping over it, forwards or backwards, to the square immediately beyond, which must be vacant for the capture to take place.
  If from this square it can proceed in a similar manner, a jump in the same- or a perpendicular direction, it must do so, and proceed thus till the capture has been fully completed. If the man lands on the back rank, it is immediately crowned to king and must proceed as such, if that is possible, in the same turn. This behaviour has led to the name "flying king".
• A king captures an opponent's piece it can 'see' at any distance, by jumping over it and landing on any square beyond that it can reach unobstructed.
  If from any such squares it can proceed in a similar manner it must choose one of these squares, and proceed thus till the capture has been fully completed.
• A player may choose freely between different captures that may be available, regardless of the number or value of the piece(s) taken.
• In the course of a capture a piece may visit a square more than once, but it may not capture a piece more than once.
• After a capture has been fully completed, the captured pieces must be removed from the board.

The expression "... and landing on any square beyond that it can reach unobstructed", does not necessarily imply choice. In fact, during the capture the king may have no choice because it is subject to completing the capture. After jumping the last piece it may choose to land on any of the subsequent vacant squares.

Object
If a player cannot legally move he loses the game. This may come about by losing all pieces or by having all pieces blocked. Draws may occur by 3-fold or mutual agreement. There are some special tournament rules to cover draws.

External links