A guide for beginning and more advanced players
of the international game of 10 x 10 draughts
Un guide pour les débutants et les joueurs plus avancés
du jeu international de Dames 10 x 10
A course in international draughts
By Tjalling Goedmoed
Finished december 2008,
Leeuwarden / Netherlands
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The diagram shows a composition by A. Ermakov. White to play and win!
Le diagramme montre une composition par A. Ermakov. Les blancs jouent et gagnent !
Table of contents
Table des matières
Introduction
1. Notation
2. Combinations
3. Coup Philippe
4. Harlem shot
5. Coup Royal
6. Kung Fu shot
7. Ping Pong shot
8. Bomb shot
9. Arch shot
10. Coup Napoleon
11. More shots
12. Forcing
13. The free move
14. The stick-move
15. Giving your opponent a king
16. Attacking a wing
17. The sacrifice
18. Strong threats
19. Base pieces
20. Trapping your opponent
21. King shots
22. The king is caught
23. Formations
24. Freezing out your opponent
25. Tactical freeze out
26. Exploiting a weak spot
27. Locks
28. The fork lock
29. The chain lock
30. Right wing lock
31. Other locks
32. The endgame
33. Opposition
34. King against pieces
35. The main diagonal
36. Trictrac lines
37. Quadrants
38. Laying an ambush
39. Tactics in the endgame
40. Practical endgames
Sources
Opleiding tot het Sijbrands diploma
B. Dollekamp / H. Hylkema
Prisma Damboek
R.C. Keller
Monografie van de Coup Royal
Herman de Jongh
DamMentor
Tj. Goedemoed
Slagzetten in het klassieke middenspel
J. Stokkel / P. Levels
Geforceerd winnen
H. de Waard
500 Lokzetten op het dambord
Kleine schuifdwangproblemen
A. v.d. Stoep
Strategie der honderd velden
J. F. Moser
Alle typezetjes
A. van der Stoep
Praktische damcombinaties (31) (34) (35)
I. Koeperman
Turbo Dambase
K. Bor
Strategie en taktiek
H. Wiersma / Tirion Sport
Honderd praktische problemen
V. Bulat
This is a course for people who want to play the game of draughts at a higher level. Not only beginners but also fairly advanced players can gain a lot from this course.
The game of draughts is characterized by an unlimited number of tricks and surprises. The most important trick in the game is called a
combination or a shot. The number of shots is so enormous that even grandmasters sometimes miss a shot during their games. The shots, sacrifices, forcings and other tricks make the game very attractive to play, watch and practise!
Teaching you how to become a stronger player is not the only goal of this course. The course also wants to show you some beautiful aspects of the game.
Every lesson consists of a theoretical part with examples you can perform at your board. Every lesson is completed by a number of exercises.
You can note down the solutions to the exercises in an exercise book. The solutions of the exercises are given after every 10 lessons.
Usually the task is to look for a combination. Exercises like these are marked with a C.
C 3.4 means exercise 4 of lesson 3: white wins by means of a combination.
This course is mainly aimed at tactical aspects of the games. Tactics refers to shots, forcings, traps etc. A second course will have a more strategic approach.
I hope you will learn a lot from this course and above all I hope you will enjoy the game!
Tjalling Goedemoed, june 2008
About the author
Tjalling Goedemoed is an experienced trainer in draughts. He has worked with many successful young players who played in World and European championships. Goedemoed is author of a Dutch draughts book (translated): “Uncle Ian teaches his nephew how to play draughts.”
Goedemoed composed five courses in draughts at cd-rom. This trainings program containing thousands of exercises is called DamMentor. You can buy these cd-roms at www.bondsbureau@kndb.nl
Thank you!
I want to thank Edwin Twiest for checking the technical part of this course and I thank Martijn de Jong and Martijn van der Klis for checking the English text.
Thanks to Frits Luteijn the course can be distributed internationally.
The squares of the draughts board are numbered from 1 to 50. The diagram shows the way the board is numbered. In the beginning of the game blacks pieces are at squares 1 until 20, white is at squares 31 until 50.
We can write down moves now.
33 – 29 means that the piece at 33 moves to 29.
After this move black has to capture 3 pieces:
35 x 22 (majority rule: you have to take the most pieces!). Piece 35 goes to 22. Because it is a capture we write down an “x” in stead of a “-“ between the numbers.
White plays 29 x 27, taking 4 pieces and cleaning the board.
White performs a nice combination here with a coup Turc.
Exercise 1.1: Put the position at your board and then play the following moves:
26 – 21 17 x 46
28 x 19 46 x 14
29 – 23 14 x 29
Write down the last capturing move for white!
Exercise 1.2: Put all the pieces on your board and try to follow the moves that are written down here: In front of the moves the number of the move is written. So 1.32 – 28 means that at the first move white moves piece 32 to square 28.
1.32 – 28 18 – 23
2.33 - 29 23 x 32
3.37 x 28 12 – 18?
A question mark (?) means: a weak move or a mistake. An exclamation mark (!) means: a strong move.
This is the position that should be at your board.
White can perform a combination. So you have to give away pieces and take more pieces back.
Try to find it!
Exercise 1.3
Black has just played a move attacking white pieces in two directions.
Which was black’s last move?
Play the following move:
1.37 – 31!
How does black have to capture now?
Write down the capture of black and white.
Exercise 1.4
White can win piece 20 by attacking it.
Write down the 3 moves white has to play. We show you black’s moves:
…………………………. 3 – 9
…………………………. 9 – 14
………………………….
Exercise 1.5
Piece 28 is not protected well. White to play can win the piece by attacking it. Write down the move that wins a piece for white.
Example 1.6
Let’s do this again. Whites king has to stop blacks pieces. First stop piece 16 and after it stop the other piece.
……………………………… 28 – 33
……………………………… 16 – 21
……………………………… 33 – 39
………………………………
Exercise 1.7
White plays a move after which his opponent has to capture 3 pieces. After this white takes 4 pieces to king.
Write down the moves described above.
A combination (or shot) is a sequence of moves in which your opponent has to take several pieces...
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