One of the main skills for a checkers player is to come up with a good move that will allow you to dashingly drive your pawn into the kings. These figures endowed with special rights help to win, give a chance to draw a game that is not taking shape in their favor.
A queen in checkers is not a special piece that is placed on the board before the start of a game, like, for example, a queen in chess. The king becomes a simple pawn, which in the course of the game has reached the last rank of the opposite edge of the board (the queen row). And then an "ordinary miracle" happens: an ordinary pawn, located deep behind enemy lines, turns into a powerful figure endowed with special rights. In the playing space, it looks like this - the checker is turned upside down (or another checker of the same color is placed on top of it). Both means that the player has a king. In graphic notations and game diagrams, as well as in virtual modifications of the game, such a figure is denoted by the letter D or the symbol crown.
How special and important this crowned person is can be judged by the dictum of Kozma Prutkov: "Girls are generally like checkers: not everyone succeeds, but everyone wants to get into the queens." It doesn't matter in the game how the passed checker turned into a king. She can enter the camp of the opposite side with a quiet move or reach the queen row as a result of taking the opponent's checkers (shock move). But how the king beats (draftsmen use the term “chops”) is very important. When capturing, this piece is obliged to follow certain rules, which have both similarities and some differences from the order of the fight with ordinary checkers.
The lady is obliged to cut "as expected"
In terms of its functionality, the king is significantly superior to a simple checker, since due to the received "lady" rights, it has a wider choice of available targets. It has greater mobility: it moves to any diagonal square (having a move both forward and backward); can walk along the chosen path to an arbitrary number of free cells; has the right to stop at any free diagonal square after a beaten checker.
However, if you have such rights, there are some nuances in the order of the fight with the kings of the opponent's pieces. The rules stipulate the following standards for hitting a king:
- The chopping king is allowed to cross the same free square many times.
- When capturing several pieces, the already beaten (but not yet removed from the board) checker stops the taking queen. According to the “Turkish strike” rule, repeated jumping over the taken checkers is prohibited.
- It is prohibited to remove broken checkers from the playing field without completing the strike. All pieces captured by the striking king are removed at the same time at the end of the move.
- Features of the fight of the "newly made" king. If the transformation of a checker into a king occurs as a result of a quiet move, then it will be able to use its new rights only after the opponent responds. When a checker enters the queens line with a shock move, and at the same time there are other targets in front of it, it must take them immediately, but continues to cut like a king.
- When capturing several opponent's checkers, the king must beat the subsequent ones until it reaches a position from which the fight becomes impossible.
- If a situation arises in which you can cut the king in several directions, the choice is made at the discretion of the player.
Designing the participation of kings in game combinations, checkers use various special terms. Thus, a typical position in which the king meets two simple pawns is called a “fork”. The confrontation of the kings, in which the beginner loses - "tetanus". And the piece that remains at the end of the game without simple checkers of the same color is called a lonely king.
The presence of such circumstances is connected with the kings, in which the game is considered to be finished in a draw. For example:
- when during 15 moves the game is played exclusively with kings, simple checkers do not move, capture is not made;
- if in the final of the game, when three kings are opposed by the lonely king of the opponent, the winning player has not finished the game in 15 moves.
How not to miss an opponent in the king
Carried away by the process of turning his checkers into kings, the player should not allow his opponent to do the same, especially in the middle of the game. There is a risk that the opponent will act as they say in the popular saying: "bam, bam, and the king!". A technique that allows a passed pawn to break into the kings in a given area of the playing space is called a "breakout". The advice of experts will help not to let the enemy into your rear:
- at the initial stage of the game, without the need not to release your ladies' squares (with the exception of the so-called backward checkers a1 and h8);
- to fight with a clear numerical advantage of the opponent's forces in any area. A breakthrough can be made anywhere (both in the center and on the flanks);
- Try to see a possible combination of the enemy, unravel the plan of attack and disrupt its implementation.
But it is easy to say and difficult to do. Anticipating intricate and multi-pass plans requires knowledge of tactics and strategy, gaming experience, and the ability to think. Checkers are considered not just a popular logic game, but a symbiosis of sport, art and science.
