Alquerque

Description

Alquerque (also known as Qirkat) is a strategy board game that is thought to have originated in the Middle East. It is considered to be the parent of draughts (US and South Africa: checkers) and Fanorona.

Rules

The gameboard looks like this

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One player uses the coins of the astronomical suits (Suns and Moons) and one player uses the rule suits (Arms and Crowns), or if you have two piecepacks you could each have one suit.

Before starting, each player places their twelve pieces in the two rows closest to them and in the two rightmost spaces in the center row. The game is played in turns.

The goal of the game is to eliminate the opponent's pieces.

• A piece can move from its point to any empty adjacent point that is connected by a line.
• A piece can jump over an opposing piece and remove it from the game, if that opposing piece is adjacent and the point beyond it is empty.
• Multiple capturing jumps are permitted, and indeed compulsory if possible.
• If a capture is possible it must be made, or else the piece is removed (or huffed).
• A piece cannot move backward (e.g., a piece in the middle of an empty board would have five available moves).
• No piece can return to a point it has previously occupied.
• Once a piece has reached the opponent's back row it can only move to capture opposing pieces.

The game is won when either:

• The opponent has lost all of their pieces.
• None of the opponent's pieces are able to move.

Alternate rules

Allows board to be built with piecepack tiles and optionally matchsticks (written by TrevorLDavis): Sheet (letter, A4), Pamphlet (letter, A4)

License

This document uses material from the Wikipedia article Alquerque, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Reviews and Comments

CategoryGame MechanicRectangularBoardCategory MechanicJumpingPiecesCategory SpaceTraversalCategory GamesForChildrenCategory