Checkers & Draughts Glossary
The words you meet across the checkers and draughts family, explained in plain language. Terms are engine-accurate for the games you can play here — see the full variants guide and the strategy lessons for more.
Terms A–Z
Alquerque
A medieval board game played on a grid of lines, widely regarded as an ancestor of draughts. The move-and-jump idea of checkers descends from games in this family.
Back row (kings row)
A player's nearest row, whose men guard the squares an opponent must reach to be crowned. Holding the back row denies the opponent easy kings, which is why it is defended as long as possible.
Breakthrough
A combination, usually starting with a sacrifice, that forces the defenders aside so one of your men reaches the far row and promotes.
Combination
A short, forced sequence of moves — often a sacrifice followed by captures — that ends with you ahead in material or with a man promoting. The forced-capture rule makes it work.
Coup
A draughts term for a combination: a calculated forced sequence that wins on the spot. Named coups are common in the international game.
Crowning (promotion)
Turning a man into a king by reaching the far row (the opponent’s back row). How and when a man crowns during a capture differs by variant.
Dama
The Iberian word for a king (in Spanish and Portuguese draughts). A dama is worth more than a peão, which the capture laws of those games encode directly.
Double corner
The corner of the board with two connected playable escape squares. It is the safest refuge for a lone king and the hardest place to trap one, so a defender heads there.
Endgame counter
A codified move limit that draws a specific reduced endgame — for example a lone king against a small force — if the stronger side has not won within the set number of moves.
Flying king
A king that moves any number of empty squares along a diagonal and captures an enemy piece from a distance, landing anywhere beyond it. Used in International, Brazilian, Pool, Russian, Spanish, Czech, Portuguese, and Canadian play.
FMJD
The Fédération Mondiale du Jeu de Dames, the world governing body for International Draughts. Its rulebook defines the maximum-capture and draw laws used in the international game.
Forçada
The Portuguese (FPD) endgame draw rule: three kings against a lone king, with at least one of the three on the long diagonal, must win within a set number of moves or the game is drawn.
Forced (mandatory) capture
The rule that if a capture is available on your turn, you must take it. It is the lever behind every combination — you can force the opponent into a capture that loses.
Free capture choice
The rule, used in Pool, Russian, and Czech checkers, that when several capturing lines are available you may take any of them — there is no maximum-capture requirement.
Halma
The 1883/84 racing game that Chinese Checkers descends from. In Halma-family games, jumping a piece is transportation, not capture — nothing is ever removed from the board.
Hop chain
A sequence of consecutive jumps made in one turn. In Chinese Checkers, hop chains never capture anything and may stop after any hop.
Hot-seat
Two people playing on the same device, taking turns at one board, rather than against the AI. Sometimes called two-player or pass-and-play.
Huffing
An old draughts rule under which a player who failed to make an available capture could have the offending piece removed. It is obsolete under modern forced-capture rules and is not used on this site.
King
A promoted piece. Kings move and capture in more directions than men; depending on the variant they are either short (one square) or flying (any distance along a diagonal).
King priority
The signature Czech rule: if any of your kings can capture, you must capture with a king. A man’s capture is only legal when no king has one.
Long diagonal
A diagonal running corner to corner across the whole board. Controlling a long diagonal is central to flying-king endgames; in the Portuguese game it is called the rio.
Man (men)
An ordinary, uncrowned piece. Men move diagonally forward; whether they can capture backward, and how they crown, depends on the variant.
Maximum capture
The rule, used in Brazilian, International, Spanish, Portuguese, and Canadian play, that when several captures are available you must take the one that captures the most pieces.
Mid-capture crowning
The signature Russian rule: a man that reaches the far row in the middle of a capture crowns instantly and continues the same sequence as a king.
Most-kings tiebreak
The Spanish and Portuguese rule (the lei da qualidade) that when two capturing lines take the same number of pieces, you must take the one that captures the most kings.
Multi-jump
A capture that continues in the same turn: when a jump leads to another jump with the same piece, the captures keep going until no further jump is possible.
No-progress rule
A draw rule that ends the game when a set number of moves pass by each side with no capture and no man move — a codified way to declare a position stalemated.
Opposition
The key king-endgame idea: being the player who is not forced to move first in a face-off, so the opponent must give ground. Winning king endings is largely about holding the opposition.
Peão
The Portuguese word for an ordinary man (piece). A peão is worth less than a dama (king), which the quality-of-capture law reflects.
Ply
A single move by one player — a half-move. Draw counters and search depths are usually measured in plies; two plies make one full move by both sides.
Quantity rule
The Portuguese lei da quantidade: among available captures you must take the one that grabs the most pieces. It is Portuguese draughts’ form of the maximum-capture rule.
Sacrifice
Deliberately offering a piece so that the forced recapture lets you win more back, promote a man, or break the opponent’s position. The first move of most combinations.
Shashki
The Russian name for draughts, and specifically for Russian Checkers — the 8×8 game with flying kings, backward captures, and mid-capture crowning.
Shot
A short forced sequence that wins material, such as a two-for-one. The everyday word for a small tactical combination.
Single corner
The corner of the board with only one playable escape square. A lone king driven into the single corner has nowhere to hide, so an attacker herds the enemy king there.
Threefold repetition
A draw rule: if the same position, with the same player to move, occurs three times, the game is drawn. It stops endless shuffling from counting as progress.
Two-for-one
The most common shot: you give up one piece so that the forced recapture lines the opponent’s pieces up for a jump that takes two back, leaving you a piece ahead.