Turkish Checkers

A Draughts Board With the Diagonals Taken Out

The first thing a diagonal player notices about Turkish dama is that the board looks broken. There is no chequer, both back rows are empty, and 32 men are crammed onto four ranks. Then the pieces start moving straight ahead and sideways and every trained instinct you have goes quiet at once. Threats do not arrive on diagonals here. They come down files and along ranks.

Push through that first hour anyway. Men use all 64 squares, so no piece is ever stuck on the wrong colour the way it is on half a checkerboard, and a crowned piece covers a full rank and a full file at once. The board above runs the whole ruleset. Take the computer at one of four strengths, or pass the device back and forth in two-player mode. Undo and hints work in both, and nothing needs installing.

Turkish Dama Rules

The board is 8x8 and all 64 squares are in play. Because the chequer means nothing in this game, the board is drawn plain with grid lines. Each player sets out 16 men (taş) on their second and third rows, counting from their own edge, and leaves the back row empty. White moves first, then turns alternate.

A man is a straight-line piece with three directions:

• It moves one square straight forward, or one square to the left or right, onto an empty square. Never backward, never diagonally.
• It captures the same three ways, jumping an enemy piece standing next to it and landing on the empty square directly beyond.

A man that finishes a move on the far row is crowned and becomes a dama. A dama behaves like a rook: it slides any number of empty squares along a rank or a file, in all four directions, and it captures by jumping a single enemy piece on that line and landing on any empty square further along it. It then keeps going if more captures are there to be made.

Capturing is compulsory. While any jump is available on the board, no quiet move is legal, and when several capture sequences exist you must play one that takes the greatest number of pieces. Piece count is the whole test. This variant has no most-kings tiebreak, so if two of the longest lines take four pieces each, both stay legal even where one of them collects a dama and the other collects four men. Pick whichever you like.

Jumped pieces come off the board the instant they are jumped, not at the end of the turn. Spanish and Portuguese play do the reverse, and the difference shows up inside a long sequence: a later jump may cross or land on a square that a moment ago held a piece you have already taken. Nothing can be jumped twice, because there is nothing left to jump.

One restriction shapes those sequences. Between two jumps a capturing piece may not turn straight back on itself. It can carry on, or turn left, or turn right, but a 180 degree about-turn down the line it just came along is illegal.

Crowning waits for the end of a capture. A man that reaches the far row in the middle of a sequence does not stop and promote there. It keeps capturing sideways along that row as a man, and it is crowned only if the sequence happens to finish on that row. Put that together with the longest-capture obligation and one odd consequence falls out: a man landing on the far row beside an enemy dama it can take has to take it, uncrowned.

You win by capturing everything your opponent has, or by leaving them without a legal move when their turn comes round. Three rules end a game as a draw instead:

• Threefold repetition. The same position, with the same player to move, appears for a third time.
• One piece each. The moment both sides are down to a single piece, the game is drawn on the spot.
• No progress. If 40 moves pass for each player, 80 turns altogether, with no capture made and no man moved, the game is drawn. A capture or any move by an uncrowned man puts the count back to zero.

Two of those three are our house law, and we would rather say so. Threefold repetition is standard everywhere. The one-piece-each draw and the 40-move count are the law this site applies so a dead position ends instead of running forever; the Turkish federation's tournament rulebook was not among the sources we worked from, and we are not claiming these numbers are its numbers.

Where the Game Comes From

The game goes by Türk daması, by plain Dama, and in English by Turkish draughts. It is common across the Middle East, and tournaments are played in Turkey, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Uzbekistan, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Estonia. BoardGameGeek dates it to 1400.

Where it came from before that is argued rather than settled. Mats Winther records the case that Turkish checkers grew out of Gothic checkers, an older European game, which would make the straight-line movement inherited rather than invented locally. Ratrout adds a small practical note: a chequered board is sometimes used instead of a plain one, and it makes no difference to play, since no rule in the game refers to the colour of a square.

Where It Sits in the Family

Most draughts variants can be sorted by asking whether a man jumps backward and whether a king flies. Turkish dama sits outside that grid altogether, because the question underneath both, which way does a piece travel, has a different answer here. It shares the flying idea with the Spanish branch and the maximum-capture rule with almost everyone, then routes both along ranks and files.

Set it against the Spanish board on the home page and the contrast does the teaching. Spanish men walk and jump on 32 dark squares, captured pieces stay put until the turn ends, and a promotion in mid-capture stops the turn dead. Turkish play reverses all three. The Spanish rules page spells that version out in full if you want them side by side. Our longer write-up of this variant is in the Turkish dama guide, and the several games called dama maps the whole tree. There is also a Turkish-language version of this board.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Turkish dama?

Turkish dama is a draughts game played on all 64 squares of an 8x8 board, with 16 men a side and no diagonal movement anywhere in it. Men step and jump straight ahead or sideways. A crowned piece slides along ranks and files like a chess rook. It also answers to Turkish draughts, Turkish checkers and Türk daması, and BoardGameGeek dates it to 1400.

Why does the board have no dark squares?

Because the chequer would tell you nothing. In a diagonal game the pattern marks out the 32 squares a piece can ever reach, so it is doing real work. Turkish men travel along ranks and files and use every square on the board, which leaves the colouring purely decorative. The board here is drawn plain for that reason. Ratrout notes that a chequered board is used as an alternative, and the pattern still plays no part in the rules.

How does a king move in Turkish dama?

Like a rook. It slides any number of empty squares along a rank or a file, in all four directions, and it captures by jumping one enemy piece on that line and landing on any empty square beyond it. One king watches a whole rank and a whole file at once, so trading pieces down while your opponent has a king and you do not is rarely a good idea.

Do I have to play the longest capture?

Yes. If a capture exists anywhere you must take one, and among the sequences on offer you have to play one that collects the most pieces. Piece count is the only test in this variant. Two lines that take four each are equally legal even if one of them takes a king and the other takes four men, so there is no most-kings tiebreak to remember here.

What happens when a man reaches the last row mid-capture?

It carries on as a man. Crowning is delayed until the sequence stops, so a man that lands on the far row with more jumps available keeps taking pieces sideways along that row and is crowned only if it finishes there. One consequence falls straight out of the maximum-capture rule: a man arriving on the far row beside an enemy king it can take must take that king first, before the crown arrives.

Can I play Turkish dama against other people?

Not on this page, which gives you the computer at four strengths or two people sharing one device, with undo and hints in both. Our sister site runs Turkish checkers against live opponents at Checkers Online.