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Play the games of Russia

The rules of shashki

1. The board is 8×8 and only the dark squares are used. Each player has 12 pieces on the three rows nearest them.
2. Men move one square diagonally forward. They capture by jumping forward or backward.
3. If you can capture, you must, but you may pick any route, not only the longest. Once started, a route must be finished.
4. Captured pieces come off only when the whole move is finished, and no piece can be jumped twice.
5. A man that reaches the far row becomes a king. If that happens during a capture, it carries on capturing as a king.
6. Kings move any distance along a diagonal and capture from a distance. If a king can land on a square that lets it keep capturing, it must.
7. You lose when you have no pieces or no legal move.
8. It’s a draw with one king each, when the same position comes up three times, after 15 moves each of only king moves without a capture, or after 15 moves each with three or more kings against a lone king.

Tournament rules have a few more endgame draws. These are the ones used here.

The rules of Durak

1. Durak is played with 36 cards, six to ace. Each player gets six cards, and the next card is turned up: its suit is trumps for the whole game. It goes under the pack and is the last card drawn.
2. The player with the lowest trump attacks first. The attacker leads any card; the defender beats it with a higher card of the same suit or with any trump.
3. The attacker may throw in more cards of a rank already on the table, up to six attacks, and never more than the defender holds.
4. If the defender beats every card, the cards go out of play and the defender attacks next. If not, the defender picks up everything on the table and the attacker leads again.
5. After each round both players draw back up to six, attacker first, while the pack lasts.
6. Once the pack is empty, the first player to get rid of every card is safe. The one left holding cards is the durak, the fool.

This is podkidnoy (throw-in) durak for two. Passing the attack on, as in perevodnoy, is not used here.

The rules of Long Nardy

1. Each player starts with all 15 checkers on one point, the head, in opposite corners. Both players move anticlockwise, in the same direction.
2. There is no hitting. A single checker holds a point, and you can never land on a point your opponent occupies.
3. Only one checker may leave the head each turn. The one exception is your first roll: with 6-6, 4-4 or 3-3 you move two checkers off the head.
4. You may not build six points in a row unless at least one of your opponent’s checkers is already past them.
5. Use both numbers if you can; if only one can be played, play the higher. Doubles are played four times.
6. Bear off once all 15 checkers are in your home. The first to bear off everything wins one point, or two (mars) if the opponent has not borne off any checker. There is no doubling cube.
7. The winner of each game starts the next one.

Russian words at the table

Shashki

The Russian word for checkers.

Shashka (man)

A single ordinary piece.

Damka (king)

A man that has reached the far row.

Turetsky udar (Turkish strike)

A trap that works because captured pieces stay on the board until the move ends.

Durak (fool)

The player left holding cards at the end, and the name of the game.

Kozyr (trump)

The trump suit, set by the card turned up after the deal.

Podkidnoy (throw-in)

The usual way to play: the attacker may throw in more cards of a rank already on the table.

Bito (beaten)

Said when every attack has been beaten and the cards go out of play.

Nardy (backgammon)

The family name for backgammon games in Russia and the Caucasus; long nardy is the version without hitting.

Golova (head)

The starting point where all 15 checkers begin.

Mars

A double win: you bear off everything before your opponent has borne off a single checker.

Questions