Brazilian Damas

Jogo de Damas on 64 Squares

Brazilian damas is what most of Brazil means by a game of draughts, and the same ruleset turns up in Portuguese tournament play too. Describing it takes one sentence: the rules of international draughts, all of them, played on the ordinary checkerboard everybody already owns. Playing it well takes rather longer, because squeezing that rulebook onto 64 squares means a single careless step can hand over four pieces in one turn.

The board above runs exactly that ruleset. Pick the computer at one of four strengths, from beginner up to hard, or pass the device back and forth in two-player mode. Undo and hint work in both. Nothing needs installing.

Brazilian Damas Rules

The board is an ordinary 8x8, and only its 32 dark squares are ever used. Each side puts 12 men on the dark squares of the three rows nearest to it, leaving the two centre rows empty at the start. Orientation is standard, with a dark square in your near-left corner, so the opening picture is the one most people already carry around from a shop-bought set. White opens, and turns alternate from there.

An uncrowned man does two different things:

• It moves one square diagonally forward, onto an empty dark square.
• It captures in all four diagonal directions, forward or backward, by jumping an enemy piece that sits next to it and landing on the empty square immediately beyond.

Captures are not a choice. Whenever a jump exists somewhere on the board you have to make one, and any quiet move is illegal until no capture remains. Where several capturing sequences are available, count them: you must play one that takes the greatest number of pieces, and a shorter line is forbidden while a longer one is on offer. Brazilian damas stops the ranking there. If two lines both take, say, three pieces, both are legal and you take whichever you prefer, even where one of them collects a king and the other collects three men. This variant has no kings tiebreak. Spanish dama does have one, and mixing the two up will make you play the wrong move on the wrong board.

Jumped pieces stay on their squares until the whole sequence finishes and only then come off. Because they are still physically in the way, nothing can be jumped twice within a single turn.

A man is crowned by ending its move on the opponent's back row. Passing through that row in the middle of a longer capture does not promote it: it carries on as a man and completes the jumps it owes, and it becomes a king only if the sequence happens to finish on the crowning row. That detail decides a lot of endings.

A king is a flying piece. As a quiet move it glides any number of empty squares along a diagonal. As a capture it strikes from a distance, sliding over any run of empty squares, jumping an enemy piece that has a free square behind it, and landing on any empty square further along the same diagonal. It keeps turning corners for as long as more captures exist.

You win by taking every enemy piece, or by leaving your opponent with no legal move when their turn arrives. The game is drawn in two ways here. The first is threefold repetition: the same position, with the same player to move, appears for a third time. The second is the no-progress law, which ends the game after 40 moves by each side, 80 individual turns in all, with no capture made and no man moved. Either a capture or a man move resets that count to zero.

One documented rule of the tradition is deliberately absent. Board Game Geek's summary of Brazilian draughts lists a three-kings-against-one ending that has to be won inside 16 moves or be declared drawn. This engine does not implement that counter, so the board above will let you keep trying until threefold repetition or the no-progress law steps in.

Where These Rules Came From

Ask how old the game is and you get two answers, both correct. The older one comes first: long before Brazil had anything to do with it, draughts writers were describing this exact rulebook as Minor Polish draughts. Mats Winther puts it in the 16th century and in Holland, with Amsterdam as its stronghold. The Brazilian half of the name arrived four hundred years later. Board Game Geek dates the federation's codification of the rules to 1930, and the body behind that codification is the Confederação Brasileira de Jogo de Damas.

That double life explains the pile of names the game answers to: Jogo de Damas Brasileiras and Brasileiro 64 casas in Portuguese, 64 Velden Dammen in Dutch, plus Minor Polish Draughts and 64-square Polish in the older draughts literature. All of them describe the board above.

Brazilian, Filipino and Spanish, Side by Side

Four of the 8x8 traditions have a board on this site. Knowing which rule actually changes as you move between them saves a lot of confusion.

• Filipino dama shares this rulebook field for field. What changes is the furniture: Philippine boards are mirrored, so the light square sits in your near-left corner. Same game the other way round, on the Filipino board.
• Set a Spanish dama position beside this one and they look identical. Then the differences turn up: men that never jump backward, a promotion that stops the turn dead, and a most-kings rule that picks between equal-length capture lines. The Spanish board and its rules page go through it properly.
• Portuguese damas catches out anyone who assumes a shared language means a shared rulebook. Portugal plays in the Spanish branch, not this one, and writes two draw laws of its own on top. It has a board of its own here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Brazilian damas?

Brazilian damas is the 64-square member of the international draughts family. You get an 8x8 board, 12 pieces a side, men that jump in any diagonal direction, kings that travel the full length of a diagonal, and a standing obligation to play whichever capture line takes the most pieces. In Brazil the game is simply jogo de damas; older draughts writing files the identical ruleset under the name Minor Polish draughts. Our guide to the games called dama places it among the rest.

Is Brazilian damas the same as international draughts?

The rules match; the equipment does not. International draughts fills a 100-square board with 20 pieces a side, while Brazilian damas runs the same rulebook on the ordinary 64-square board with 12 a side. Shrinking the board shortens the games and makes a single lost piece hurt far more, but nothing about how a man or a king behaves changes.

Do men capture backward in Brazilian damas?

Yes, and that is the rule that gives the game its character. A man still walks forward, one diagonal step at a time, but the instant a capture is available it may jump in any of the four diagonal directions, including straight back toward its own side. A piece you have already walked past is not safe from it.

What is the difference between Brazilian damas and Filipino dama?

In the rules, nothing at all. Backward captures, flying kings, compulsory maximum capture with no further tiebreak, and a man that keeps jumping through the crowning row: every one of those is shared. What differs is how the board is laid out, because Filipino boards are mirrored and put a light square in your near-left corner. Both boards are on this site because players look for them under different names, so you can open the Filipino board and see the same game from the other side.

How is Brazilian damas different from Spanish dama?

Three rules and one piece of furniture. Spanish men never jump backward. A Spanish man that lands on the far row mid-capture halts there and is crowned, while a Brazilian man keeps jumping as a man. When two capture lines take the same number of pieces, Spanish dama forces the line taking more kings, and Brazilian damas leaves that choice to you. The Spanish board is also mirrored; this one is not. Try the Spanish board or read its full rules to feel the gap.

Can I play Brazilian damas against other people?

Not on this page. The board here gives you the computer at four strengths or a second person on the same device, with undo and hints in both modes. Live opponents are at Checkers Online, where Brazilian checkers runs with matchmaking.