 Russian draughts starting position | |
| Genres | Board game Abstract strategy game |
|---|---|
| Players | 2 |
| Setup time | 10–60 seconds |
| Playing time | 5 minutes for blitz 15 minutes for rapid 45 minutes for classic |
| Chance | None |
| Skills | Strategy |
Russian draughts (also known as Shashki or Russian shashki) is a variant of draughts (checkers) played in Russia and some parts of the former USSR, as well as parts of Eastern Europe and Israel.
As in all draughts variants, Russian draughts is played by two people, on opposite sides of a playing board, alternating moves. One player has dark pieces, and the other has light pieces. Pieces move diagonally and pieces of the opponent are captured by jumping over them.
The rules of this variant of draughts are:
Games and positions are recorded using a special notation – algebraic notation. The vertical columns of squares are labeled from a to h. The horizontal rows of squares are numbered 1 to 8 starting from White's side of the board. Thus each square of the board has a unique identification of file letter followed by rank number.
1. e3-d4 d6-c5 2. g3-f4?? c5:e3:g5 3. ...
Starting position. White move first. |
After 1. e3-d4 |
After 1. e3-d4 d6-c5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After 2. g3-f4?? |
After c5:e3:g5 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Official rules were printed in Russia in 1884. The first Russian championship was held in 1894. The following three took place in 1895, 1898 and 1901.
The first championship in the Soviet Union occurred in 1924, first women's championship was in 1936. From 1924 to 1991 there were 51 men's championships and 35 women's. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, championships have been held in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus and other Post-Soviet states.
The first world championship of Russian draughts occurred in 1993 as part of the World championship in draughts-64 (Russian and Brazilian variant — since 1985) under the auspices of the Section-64 World Draughts Federation. The European championship of Russian draughts is held as part of the European championship in draughts-64 (Russian and Brazilian), as well as at national championships.
There are several variants of draughts games based on main rules of Russian draughts. Amongst the most popular ones is ″Poddavki″, where a player wins if he doesn't have any legal moves on his turn (either by giving up all of his checkers or having them being blocked). Another popular variant is called "Bashni" ("Towers"), where captured pieces are not removed from the game, but placed underneath the capturing piece, forming a "tower".
Another variant is played on a 10x8 board (2 additional columns, labelled 'i' and 'k'). There are official championships for shashki and its variants.
Another variant, invented by Grandmaster Vladimir Vigman, exists in which each player has 24 pieces (two full sets) — one on the white squares, second on the black. Each player plays two games simultaneously: one game on the white squares, other game on the dark squares. The total result is the sum of the results of both games.
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | |||
| 8 |  |  | | | | | | | | | 8 | |
| 7 | | | | | | | | | | | 7 | |
| 6 | | | | | | | | | | | 6 | |
| 5 |  | | | | | | | | | | 5 | |
| 4 | | | | | | | | | | | 4 | |
| 3 |  | | | | | | | | | | 3 | |
| 2 | | | | | | | | | | | 2 | |
| 1 | | | | | | | | | | | 1 | |
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j |
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
| 8 |    | 8 | |||||||
| 7 | 7 | ||||||||
| 6 | 6 | ||||||||
| 5 | 5 | ||||||||
| 4 | 4 | ||||||||
| 3 | 3 | ||||||||
| 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
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