Rules
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'.
The diagram shows the board and the pieces in the initial position.
A cell is identified as the intersection of two oblique files.
- White begins. Players move - and must move - in turn
Object
- If a player has no legal move he loses the game
In Draughts, having no move may come about in two ways: the player
is either eliminated or blocked completely. In HexDame it is virtually
impossible to leave a player literally without a move.
Of course a player may be blocked in a strategical or tactical sense,
which means he is left without a good move.
- A man moves one cell straight or oblique forward, provided it is vacant.
If a man ends its move on the back rank,
it promotes to king. A king moves any distance along an open line, as indicated
Capture
Capture is compulsory and 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
The mechanics of capture are identical to Draughts, but in six instead of four directions.
Next to the oblique lines, like the central e-line and 5-line, we will also call the columns
'lines', like the central a1-i9-line.
-
Majority capture has precedence: if the player to move can make more than one capture,
he must seek out beforehand the one that captures the most pieces. If there's more than
one way to meet this criterion, he is free to choose.
It doesn't matter whether a man or a king performs the capture, nor whether it is a
man or a king that is captured: both count as one piece
-
Capture is multi-directional. A man captures an opponent's piece on an adjacent cell by
jumping over it and landing on the cell immediately beyond, which must exist and be
vacant for the capture to take place. In a multiple capture the man thus proceeds until
the capture has been completed
-
A king looks in six directions. If it sees, at any distance, an opponent's piece and
immediately beyond one or more vacant cells in an unbroken row, it captures by jumping
the piece and landing on any of the vacant cells mentioned. In a multiple
capture it thus proceeds until the capture has been completed
The expression "...it captures by jumping the piece and landing on
any of the vacant cells mentioned", does not necessarily imply choice
in a multiple capture. Being subject to majority capture, the king will usually have no choice,
except possibly after jumping the last piece.
-
After - and only after - the capture has been completed, the captured pieces are removed
from the board
-
A piece may in the course of a multiple capture visit a cell more than once, but it
may not jump the same piece more than once
-
If a man ends its (capturing) move on the opponent's back row of nine cells, it is
promoted to king. This marks the end of the move
-
A man passing the back row in a capture, but not ending on it, does not promote
-
The game may end in a draw by 3-fold or mutual agreement
You can play HexDame online in the ArenA
