How to play
Thai Checkers
Mak-hot (หมากฮอส) is Thailand's favourite draughts game. Two players use only the dark squares of an 8 × 8 board. You win by capturing all of your opponent's pieces or by leaving them without a legal move.
Setup
- Each side has 8 pieces on the dark squares of its first two rows.
- White moves first, then the players alternate.
Moving a man
- A man moves one square diagonally forward to an empty square. It never moves backwards.
- It captures by jumping diagonally forward over an adjacent enemy piece to the empty square right behind it.
- If the same piece can capture again, it must keep jumping until no capture is left (a man only jumps forward).
Captures are compulsory
- If any of your pieces can capture, you must capture.
- With several possible captures you may choose any of them — there is no rule to take the most — but the chosen sequence must be completed.
- A captured piece leaves the board as soon as it is jumped.
The king (ฮอส)
- A man that reaches the far row becomes a king (shown with a gold crown).
- If it reaches the far row during a capture, it is promoted and the move ends there.
- A king moves diagonally forwards or backwards over any number of empty squares.
- A king may capture from a distance, but it must land on the square directly behind the captured piece, and may continue capturing from there in any direction.
- A king cannot jump over two pieces standing next to each other.
Winning and draws
- A player with no pieces left, or with no legal move on their turn, loses.
- The game is drawn when the same position occurs three times, when each side has only one king, or after 60 moves in a row without a capture or a man move.
Computer levels
| Easy | Looks only a little ahead and makes mistakes now and then. Good for learning. |
|---|---|
| Medium | Rarely gives pieces away; you need a plan several moves deep. |
| Hard | Searches deeply for its whole thinking time and uses forced captures and exchanges. |
On this site: tap one of your pieces, gold dots show where it can go, then tap the destination. When a capture can branch, tap each landing square in turn.