Glossary
The words this family uses, and what they mean in each code.
- Al-qirq
- The Arabic name the Spanish word alquerque comes from.
- Approach
- Capturing by stepping towards an enemy piece, taking it and every enemy directly behind it in that line.
- Arc
- The curve joining the end of one line to the start of the next at a corner of the board. A capture must pass through at least one.
- Ballot
- A randomly drawn opening imposed on both players, used in English draughts to stop opening theory deciding games.
- Blocked
- Having no legal move. In alquerque, as in draughts, this loses the game rather than drawing it.
- Circuit
- One of the two closed tracks over the board: the inner circuit on the second and fifth lines, the outer on the third and fourth, each joined at the corners by arcs.
- Crowning
- Turning a man into a king by finishing a move on the far row. Whether passing through mid-capture counts is one of the main differences between codes.
- Dimy
- The five-by-five board and its game.
- Double corner
- The corner of the board with two playable squares touching it. Which side it sits on distinguishes the Italian and Spanish orientation from the English one.
- Flying king
- A king that may slide any distance along a clear diagonal and capture a piece at a distance, landing on a square of its choice beyond it.
- Huff
- The medieval penalty: removing an opponent's piece that failed to make an available capture. Used here only in the unrated historic variant.
- Huffing
- The historic penalty for declining an available capture: the opponent removed the offending piece from the board. Replaced everywhere by compulsory capture.
- Inner circuit
- The tighter loop, running along the second and fifth lines in each direction.
- King
- A piece that has reached the far row and been promoted. Depending on the code it either moves one square in any diagonal direction or flies the length of the diagonal.
- Lattice
- The pattern of points and lines. Alquerque's has diagonals through every second point, giving some points eight neighbours and others four.
- Long diagonal
- The unbroken diagonal running corner to corner. Holding it is worth a great deal in the endgame, and in Russian rules it changes the draw count for a lone king.
- Majority rule
- The requirement to play whichever capture sequence takes the most pieces, rather than any capture you like.
- Man
- An uncrowned piece. It moves one square diagonally forward and captures by jumping.
- Outer circuit
- The wider loop, running along the third and fourth lines in each direction.
- Paika
- A non-capturing move. Borrowed from fanorona, where it has a formal meaning; used loosely here for a quiet move.
- PDN
- Portable Draughts Notation, the standard text format for recording a game. Every finished game here can be exported as PDN.
- Permainan
- The game's other name, Indonesian for 'a game'.
- Poddavki
- A reversed game in which losing all your pieces wins.
- Short jump
- Capturing by hopping over an adjacent enemy piece to the empty point immediately beyond it.
- Short king
- A king that moves and captures exactly one square, in any of the four diagonal directions.
- Shot
- A sacrifice that forces a reply and wins more material than it gave away, because the opponent had no choice about capturing.
- Strong point
- A point with diagonal lines as well as orthogonal ones, giving it eight neighbours instead of four.
- Telo
- The three-by-three board and its captureless line-making game.
- Tsivy
- The full five-by-nine board, and the name of the standard game.
- Vela
- The traditional handicap game played after a loss, in which the winner may not capture until they have lost seventeen pieces.
- Withdrawal
- Capturing by stepping directly away from an adjacent enemy piece, taking it and every enemy behind it in that line.