Alquerque
Alquerque de doce
The reconstructed medieval game: forward and sideways moves, compulsory jumps.
What is different here
If you already play {other}, these are the rules you have to unlearn.
- Pieces move and capture forwards and sideways only.
- Capture is compulsory, and any available sequence may be chosen so long as it is completed.
Bell/Murray reconstruction of the Libro de los juegos (1283) game. Forward and sideways steps only, mandatory jumps (any capture), pieces removed after the sequence, threefold repetition and 50 moves without a capture are draws.
Shared by every {game} code
The board
Twenty-five points in a five-by-five grid. Lines join every point to its orthogonal neighbours, and diagonals run through every second point, so the corners, the centre and the midpoints of the edges have eight neighbours while the rest have four.
Each player has twelve pieces. They fill the two rows nearest them plus the two points of the middle row on their right, leaving only the centre empty.
Moving and capturing
A piece moves one step along a line to an adjacent empty point. In the standard game it may move forwards or sideways but not backwards.
It captures by jumping an adjacent enemy piece and landing on the empty point directly beyond, along the same line. A jump that lands where another jump is available continues with the same piece, in any direction the lines allow.
Capture is compulsory in the standard, backward-moves and promotion variants. As in draughts, a piece may not be jumped twice in one sequence.
Winning
You win by capturing all your opponent's pieces, or by leaving them unable to move. Threefold repetition and fifty moves without a capture are draws.
Because pieces cannot move backwards in the standard game, positions lock up quickly and being blocked is a real danger throughout, not just at the end.
Notation
Points are named like chess squares, a1 to e5. A move is written from-to, and a capture uses x, chaining through every point the piece lands on: b2xd4xd2. A huff, in the historic variant, is written as huff followed by the point.