Dama

Setup

A ruled 8×8 board, not a chequered one. Every square is the same colour, and the game is played on all sixty-four of them — the alternating light and dark squares a diagonal game needs would mean nothing here, and real dama boards do not have them.

Each player starts with sixteen men, filling the second and third rows in front of them. The back row on each side is left EMPTY, which is what makes promotion a square a man can actually reach.

The player on the near rows moves first. There is no shuffle, no deal and no die anywhere in this game: everything either player could ever know is on the board in front of both of them from the first move to the last.

This is the دامة played in Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan — sometimes called Turkish dama. It is NOT the Maghrebi ضامة, which is twelve pieces on the dark squares moving diagonally and is ordinary checkers under a similar name. A player of one would call the other wrong, so the difference matters more than it looks.

How to play

A man moves exactly one square FORWARD or SIDEWAYS — left or right along its row. It may never move backwards, and it may never move diagonally. That single rule is what everything else in this game follows from.

A man captures the same way it moves: if an enemy piece stands on the square directly in front of it or directly beside it, and the square immediately beyond that piece is empty, the man jumps over and lands there. The captured piece leaves the board at once.

Because pieces are removed the moment they are jumped, a square that has just been vacated can be landed on later in the same chain, and no piece can ever be jumped twice in one turn. This is the opposite of international draughts, where captured pieces stay on the board until the sequence ends.

If a jump is available after landing, the same piece must jump again, and it keeps jumping until there is nothing more to take. One turn can clear several pieces.

A man that ends its turn on the far row is promoted and becomes a KING. A man that reaches the far row in the MIDDLE of a capture chain stops there and is promoted; it does not carry on as a king in the same turn.

A king moves any number of empty squares along a row or a column, in any of the four directions. It still never moves diagonally.

A king captures from a distance: it slides along a row or column, and if the first piece it meets is an enemy with at least one empty square beyond it, the king jumps that piece and may land on ANY of the empty squares beyond. Then, like a man, it must keep capturing if it can.

Inside one capture chain a king may not turn straight back on itself between two jumps.

Controls

Tap one of your own pieces to pick it up. Every piece that can legally move this turn is ringed, so you can see at a glance which ones are in play before you touch anything.

The squares that piece may move to light up in mint. Tap one of them to play the move.

Tapping a different movable piece switches to it — you do not have to put the first one down first.

When a capture is chosen, the pieces it would take are ringed in red before you commit, so you can see exactly what the move costs your opponent.

If two different capture chains end on the SAME square — which happens often, because both must take the same number of pieces to be legal — the app asks which one you meant and names the pieces each would take.

The board turns so that your own men are always on the near rows. Your opponent sees it the other way up. That is a rotation and not a mirror: the board is a physical object and does not flip.

Scoring

A win is worth 26 points, a draw 9, and a loss still pays 4 — the same principle every game here follows, that finishing a match is worth something even when you lose it.

Dama is RATED. It moves the same ranked ladder as Chess, because it is a two-player game of complete information with no luck in it whatsoever.

Winning five games earns The Long Board, which is the per-game badge every title here carries and is awarded the moment your fifth win is recorded.

A game played against the computer, or on one phone, awards nothing and moves no rating — the same rule every game here follows.

Winning

You win when your opponent cannot move. That means either they have no pieces left, or every piece they have is blocked.

Being blocked is a real loss here, not a stalemate. A wall of men that cannot step forward or sideways has genuinely run out of game.

A lone king against a lone man is a draw: neither can force the other into anything.

A hundred moves each without a capture and without a promotion is also a draw. Two kings on an open board can circle one another indefinitely, and the game has to be able to end.

Tips

Do not be the first to touch. Because taking is compulsory, whoever steps into contact first usually hands a piece over — early on, the player who advances into range loses material. Improve your position and wait.

Keep your back row for as long as you can. Your opponent cannot promote without reaching it, and every man you leave standing there is a square they cannot use.

A wall of men side by side is far stronger than in checkers. Men cannot move backwards, so a solid rank can only be broken from in front, and an opponent who breaks it usually pays for the privilege.

Count the whole chain before you move. The longest capture is compulsory, so a move that looks like winning one piece may be forced into a line that loses you three.

A king is worth far more than a promoted checker. It sweeps a whole rank or file and takes from any distance, so trading two or three men to make one is often a good bargain.

Watch the edges. A piece on the a-file or the h-file has one fewer direction to move in and one fewer square to be jumped from — which makes the edge both safer and easier to trap you on.