Is capturing compulsory in shashi?

Yes. If you can capture, you must. If there are several options you may choose any of them, but you must finish the one you choose.

Can an ordinary man capture backwards?

In Russian and Georgian shashi, yes. A man cannot move backwards, but it can capture backwards. In some other variants, such as English checkers, this is not allowed.

A man that has reached the opponent's back row: a king. It moves any distance along a diagonal and captures from afar. If a man reaches the back row during a capture, it becomes a damka and continues capturing in the same move.

Shashi Rules: Russian Checkers as Played in Georgia

Shashi rules, the ones Georgians have always played by in courtyards and schools, are the rules of Russian draughts: an 8x8 board, 12 men each, men move only forwards but capture both forwards and backwards, capturing is compulsory, and the king, called damka, flies along a whole diagonal. Below the rules are set out step by step, from the board to the end of the game, with examples. These are also the rules official Russian draughts competitions are played under. If you know English checkers, note the differences: they matter.

Shashi is not on tamashebi.cc; you cannot play it here yet. The site currently offers nardi, Joker, Japanese Joker, domino and Bura, all free and in the browser. If you love checkers, nardi is the closest relative: two players, a board and pieces.

The board and the pieces

Board: 8x8, 64 squares, alternately light and dark. Play uses only the dark squares, 32 in all.
Setting up the board: each player's bottom-left corner is a dark square. People often get this wrong, and then everything shifts partly onto light squares.
Pieces: each player has 12 men, white or black, standing on the dark squares of the first three rows on his side. Two rows in the middle stay empty.
First move: White starts, then the players alternate.

Moving and capturing

An ordinary man moves one square diagonally forward, left or right, towards the opponent's side. It cannot move backwards. Capturing is different: if an enemy piece stands diagonally next to yours and the square behind it is empty, your man jumps over it and the enemy piece is removed. A man may capture both forwards and backwards; this is one of the defining features of Russian draughts.

If after a capture another capture is possible from the new square, the man carries on: one move can take several pieces, in any direction. Captured pieces are removed at the end of the move, not one at a time. And the same piece cannot be jumped twice in one move: if the only way to continue is through a piece already captured, the move ends there. This is known as the "Turkish strike".

Compulsory capture

If you can capture, you must; you cannot decline. If you have several captures to choose from, you pick whichever you like: in Russian draughts you are not obliged to take the sequence that captures the most pieces (unlike international draughts on a 10x10 board). But the capture you choose must be completed; you cannot stop halfway.

Old courtyard play had a rule that if your opponent missed a capture, you removed his piece from the board ("fuk", from the Russian фук). Official rules have dropped it: a missed capture is simply a mistake to be corrected.

Example: your white man is on c3, black men stand on d4 and f6, and e5 and g7 are empty. From c3 you jump d4 and land on e5, then jump f6 and land on g7: two pieces in one move. If another capture is possible from g7, you must continue with it too.

The damka: crowning a man

When an ordinary man reaches the far row on the opponent's side, it becomes a damka, a king; this is called crowning. To mark a king, the piece is flipped over or a second piece is placed on top.

A damka moves any number of free squares along a diagonal, forwards or backwards. That is why it is called a "flying" king.
A damka captures from a distance too: if an enemy piece stands ahead of it on the same diagonal with an empty square beyond, the damka jumps over and may land on any free square behind it.
If, from one of those landing squares, the capture can continue, the damka must land there and keep capturing.
A damka cannot jump its own pieces and cannot take two enemy pieces standing next to each other on one line in a single jump.
If a man reaches the far row in the middle of a capture, it is crowned on the spot and, if it can, continues capturing as a damka in the same move.

How to win

A game is won by capturing all of the opponent's pieces, or by blocking them so that he has no legal move on his turn. A game is also won if the opponent resigns or, in timed play, runs out of time.

Blocking often happens near the end, when both sides have few pieces left: the opponent's last men stand in front of yours, and every move he has is either blocked or puts a piece into your capture. If he has no move, the game is won even though his pieces are still on the board.

A draw is agreed when both players accept it, when the same position occurs three times, or when neither side can force a win any more. Official rules also set move limits: for example, if three or more kings cannot beat a single king within 15 moves, or if for 15 moves both sides move only kings without capturing or moving a man, the game is declared drawn.

Shashi, checkers and international draughts

There are several kinds of draughts, and they are often confused online. In Georgia, as in most of the former Soviet countries, Russian draughts is the traditional game. The main differences:

Russian draughts (shashi): 8x8, 12 men, men capture backwards, the king flies, and you choose which capture to make.
English checkers (American checkers, draughts): 8x8, 12 men, but men capture only forwards and the king moves one square at a time. Black moves first.
International draughts: a 10x10 board, 20 men each, flying kings, and capturing the maximum number of pieces is compulsory. A man that only passes through the far row during a capture is not crowned.
Turkish draughts: pieces move straight forwards and sideways, not diagonally. Despite the name, it is a different game altogether.

So if you look for shashi online, first check which rules the site uses. It is usually labelled "Russian draughts" or "русские шашки".

Quick tips for beginners

Take the centre: from c5, d4, e5 and f4 a man works in both directions.
Do not empty your back row early; it slows down your opponent's crowning.
Move your men in pairs: when they cover each other's backs, they are hard to capture.
Compulsory capture is a weapon: "give away" one man, your opponent is forced to take it, and then you take two or three.

Frequently asked questions

Is capturing compulsory in shashi?: Yes. If you can capture, you must. If there are several options you may choose any of them, but you must finish the one you choose.
Can an ordinary man capture backwards?: In Russian and Georgian shashi, yes. A man cannot move backwards, but it can capture backwards. In some other variants, such as English checkers, this is not allowed.
What is a damka?: A man that has reached the opponent's back row: a king. It moves any distance along a diagonal and captures from afar. If a man reaches the back row during a capture, it becomes a damka and continues capturing in the same move.

Games on tamashebi.cc are free to play. Some tables use Domino Coin, a virtual in-game coin: it is never money, cannot be bought or cashed out, and means nothing outside the site. The games are for fun and for skill. The site is available in Georgian, English, Russian and Turkish.

The games on Tamashebi.cc are played in a Georgian-language interface. They are free and use a virtual coin, never real money.

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