• The first 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.

• If a player has no legal move he loses the game. This may come about either by being eliminated or being blocked completely.

Capture has precedence over a non-capturing move. If the player to move has no capture to make, he has the following options:

• Moving a man
• Moving a king
• Moving a phalanx

• A man moves one square forward along a line, provided it is vacant, as shown in diagram below. If a man reaches the back rank, it is promoted to king. This marks the end of the move. A king moves any distance along an open line as shown in the second diagram.

Phalanx Movement

• A phalanx is an unbroken row of men of one color on a line. The shortest possible phalanx consists of two men. A king is never part of a phalanx! A phalanx moves, as a whole, one square forward along a line, provided the square in front is vacant. A phalanx may not  move backward.

In actual play not all men of a phalanx are moved. One simply picks up the last man of the phalanx one intends to move, and puts it in front. This may be any man of the phalanx from the second to the last. In the diagram above white may move the entire phalanx (f37) or split it up by moving a sub-phalanx (f47 or f57). Of course he may also move only the front men (f67 or fe6), or indeed any man (fe5, fe4, fe3), but these are not a phalanx moves.
A two-men phalanx hitting the back rank gets dissolved in the process because the front man promotes. In the case of a longer phalanx hitting the back rank, the front man transforms into a king and the others remain a phalanx. A three-men phalanx for instance transforms into a king and a two-men phalanx.

Capture is compulsory. In Bushka all capture is by approach. There are two distinct ways to do this:

• Phalanx-capture
• Piece-capture

Phalanx-capture means capture with a phalanx.
Piece-capture means capture with a man or a king.

• Phalanx-capture precedes over piece-capture! Within each principle, majority capture precedes.
• If the player to move can make exactly one phalanx-capture, he must do so. If he can make more than one, he must choose the capture that brings the maximum number of captured pieces. A king counts as one piece. If there's more than one way to meet this criterion, the player is free to choose.
  Note: The Zillions version of Bushka does not enforce this majority capture rule for a phalanx-capture, because I wouldn't know how to implement it :-(.
• If the player to move cannot make a phalanx-capture, he must look for a piece-capture. If he can make exactly one, he must do so. If he can make more than one, he must choose the capture that brings the maximum number of captured pieces. A king counts as one piece. If there's more than one way to meet this criterion, the player is free to choose.

A phalanx makes only one movement in a turn. In a capture, this movement may be forward or backward. If the square in front of a phalanx is vacant and the square beyond is occupied by an opponent's piece, the phalanx captures by approaching one square, 'touching' the piece with its head.

• If the piece is a king, it is therewith captured and removed in the same turn.
• If the piece is a man that is the head of an opposing phalanx on the same line, that entire phalanx is therewith captured and removed. If it is not the head of an opposing phalanx, only the man itself is captured.

Since a phalanx may capture both forward and backward, the expression "the square in front" must be seen within the direction of the move.

The above diagram shows an excerpt from game 3 of a best of 19 match between Anneke Treep and me. We're at the final stage of a combination white initiated with his eighth move.

After the indicated move, black has no other option than to capture with the two-men phalanx on the 4-line: 11 ...cxe4.

White next captures the 6-men phalanx on the e-line with 12 e1x3. In the actual game black, Anneke in this case, resigned. For those interested, the entire game is given below. Be sure to check notation first.

1	f25	c64
2	ed3	cd4
3	hxe4	f87
4	f3x6	d6e5x	Anneke's particular defense against the f25 opening.
5	g56	ad5
6	d2x4	bc4x
7	h67	d76??	A questionmark for each man lost. It's a pity Anneke didn't spot this one, but it's nice for the audience and me: not every game gives one the opportunity to capture a phalanx of six, the maximum possible! Here we go.
8	gf6	de6x
9	fe4	cd4x
10	dc3		Necessary to get a black phalanx on the 4-line: a single man would, after 10. gf4, capture d4e3x, which would be pointless.
		c54x
11	gf4	cxe4
12	e1x3		Yahoo! (Xcuzi)

Where a phalanx-capture keeps a particular line, a piece-capture may not. A piece may capture both forward and backward and may change direction as often as is required under the condition of majority capture.

The first condition for making a piece-capture is the absence of a phalanx-capture. A man that is the head of a phalanx in a particular direction can therefore never capture as a piece  in that direction. Of course the man may be the head of a phalanx in one direction, but not so in the perpendicular direction. The man is then called isolated in the latter direction.

• A man can only start a capture in a direction in which it is isolated. Once the capture starts, the man remains isolated by definition for the rest of the turn.
• If a man is isolated on a particular line, and next to it on that line is a vacant square followed by a square occupied by an opponent's piece, then the man captures the piece by making a one step approach onto the vacant square. Note that a piece captures only a piece, not an entire phalanx.
  If the man, now isolated by definition, can proceed in a similar way in another direction, including a 180^o turn, it must do so, taking care beforehand to establish the route that brings the maximum number of captured pieces. A king counts as one piece.
  If there's more than one way to meet this criterion, the player is free to choose.
• Being no part of a phalanx, a king is isolated by definition. It looks along open lines. If it sees, at any distance, an opponent's piece, then the king captures this piece by approaching onto the last vacant square before it. If it can proceed in a similar way in another direction, including a 180^o turn, it must do so, taking care beforehand to establish the route that brings maximum number of captured pieces.
  If there's more than one way to meet this criterion, the player is free to choose.
• After - and only after - a multiple capture has taken its complete course, the captured pieces are removed from play.
• In the course of a multiple capture a piece may visit the same square more than once, but it may not capture the same piece more than once.
• The game may end in a draw by 3-fold or mutual agreement.

A non capturing move always keeps a particular line. The index change on that line is sufficient to indicate the move. Thus f45 and gf5 indicate moves of a white man or any king, while d25 and he6 indicate moves of a white phalanx or any king.

A phalanx-capture also keeps a particular line. Here the capture sign 'x' comes between the indices, for instance hxe5 or g3x5.

A multiple piece-capture does not necessarily keep a particular line and may end on the square of origin. The 'x' sign now comes after the indices, for instance e8h6x, ef8x or f6x.

In very rare cases notation may be ambiguous.