Black and White is played on an 8x8 board with 12 pieces per player. It is similar to English Checkers, although White’s pieces are placed on white squares and Black’s on black squares. A Man (“Singleton”) steps diagonally forward. Yet, it can only capture orthogonally; sideways and forward. When it reaches the opposite end of the board, it is crowned. It can thereafter move and capture both backward and forward. It is not mandatory to capture the longest line. In this game, Zugzwang plays a much bigger role than combinations. In the endgame, two Kings against one is a win. This checkers variant was invented by David Parlett.
The object is to capture all your opponent’s men by jumping over them, or
stalemate the opponent so he has no moves. A Man can step diagonally
forward to an adjacent empty square. It captures by
jumping over an enemy piece in the orthogonal directions to a
vacant square on the other side.
Capturing is
mandatory, and you must keep jumping as long as possible.
When your Man reaches the other end of the board, it becomes a King. It can
move and capture both forward and backward.
Reference
Parlett, D. (1999). Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford University Press.
See also:
Winther, M. (2015). ‘International/Polish Checkers Variants’. (here)
-------- (2017). ‘Spanish Checkers Variants’. (here)
-------- (2017). ‘Gothic Checkers Variants’. (here)
☛ You can download my free Modern Draughts program here, but you must own the software Zillions of Games to be able to run it. (I recommend the download version.)
© Mats Winther, 2017.
