8 Ball Pool Black Squares

[Elnora Heidrick]

Thegame of Draughts goes by a variety of different names and has several different variations. The game given first is English Draughts which is known as Checkers in North America. Also given is Polish Draughts, which is played all over Western Europe and which is the most commonly played version of the game in International competition.

The game of Draughts is played on a standard Chess board 64 black and white chequered squares. Each player has 12 pieces normally in the form of fat round counters. The real shades of the pieces and the board do not necessarily need to be black and white but they are normally referred to as black and white, regardless. The board is placed between the two opponents so that the near right-hand corner square is white for both players (in the same way as for Chess).

Black always plays first. A coin is tossed to decide which player will be black. Each player's pieces are placed on the 12 black squares nearest to that player. The white squares are not used at all in the game - the pieces only move diagonally and so stay on the black squares throughout.

The objective of the game is to take all of the opponent's pieces or to produce a position such that the opponent is unable to move.

Players take turns to move a piece of their own colour. Any piece that reaches the far edge of the board is immediately crowned and is thereafter known as a "King". The act of crowning is a physical one - another piece of the same shade is placed on top of the piece in order to distinguish it from an ordinary piece.

Until a piece is "crowned", it can only move and capture in a diagonally forwards direction. Kings are allowed to move and capture diagonally forwards and backwards and are consequently more powerful and valuable than ordinary pieces. However, ordinary pieces can capture Kings.

Whenever a piece has an opponent's piece adjacent to it and the square immediately beyond the opponent's piece is vacant, the opponent's piece can be captured. If the player has the opportunity to capture one or more of the opponent's pieces, then the player must do so. A piece is taken by simply hopping over it into the vacant square beyond and removing it from the board. Unlike an ordinary move, a capturing move can consist of several such hops - if a piece takes an opponent's piece and the new position allows it to take another piece, then it must do so straight away. The move finishes only when the position of the capturing piece no longer allows it to taken any more pieces or when an uncrowned piece arrives at the far edge of the board and is crowned.

If more than one piece can capture, then the player is entirely free to choose which of those pieces to move. Likewise, if a capturing piece is able to capture in more than one direction, the player is free to choose which direction to move in. i.e. it is not compulsory to move the piece or take the route that will result in the maximum number of captures.

If no capturing moves are available, then an ordinary move is made by moving a piece one square diagonally.

In the past, the "huffing" rule was used. For this, if a player noticed that the opponent had failed to capture when the option was open (even if the offending piece had already captured one or more pieces that turn), the player can huff the offending piece before the next move is made and it is removed from the board. Nowadays, this rule is rarely used. Instead a player just points out the error and the opponent is forced to make the correct move.

The game is won by the player who first manages to take all his opponent's pieces or renders them unable to move.

A draw occurs by agreement at any point during the game. If a player refuses the offer of a draw, that player is required to force a win or show a decided advantage within 40 of that players own moves from that point. Draws are fairly common in the game of draughts - especially at the top level of the game.

The game is played in a similar fashion to English Draughts but the pieces move and capture in an extended fashion. Crowned pieces are called Queens. The following are the additional rules:

Un-crowned pieces can only move diagonally forwards but can capture diagonally forwards AND backwards.

A Queen moves by diagonally traversing any number of unoccupied squares. Likewise, when capturing, a Queen can travel over any number of unoccupied squares before and after hopping the piece.

Capturing is compulsory and where there is a choice, the move that captures the greatest number of pieces must be made.

Captured pieces are not removed from the board until the end of a move. Any pieces which have been captured but not yet removed cannot be hopped over again during the course of the move - dead pieces form an impassable barrier.

A piece is only crowned if the piece finishes the move on the final square. So, if a piece moves onto and off the final row during the course of a capturing move, and does not finish on the final row, it is not crowned.

In competitions, to reduce the chance of draws and make the opening moves less predictable, a "three-move ballot" scheme is usually adopted. A number of opening sequences of three moves are written on cards and a card is selected at random to start the game. The game then proceeds with white playing the fourth move. Once the game is finished, players swap sides and play a second game with the same starting card. The player who achieves the best result over the pair of games is the winner.

These rules are provided by Masters Traditional Games, an Internet shop selling quality traditional games, pub games and unusual games. For general information or for copying and copyright, see our Rules Information page.

Absolutely! You can try variations like 9-ball, where you must pocket balls in numerical order, or 8-ball, where you aim to pocket either stripes or spots, plus the 8-ball, depending on what you sink first.

American pool and snooker both involve cue sticks and balls, but they have distinct differences. American pool is played on smaller tables with larger balls, while snooker is played on larger tables with smaller balls. Additionally, snooker has more balls on the table and different scoring rules.

The blue chalk cube is used to apply chalk to the tip of your cue stick. Chalking your cue before each shot helps prevent miscues by providing better grip and friction between the cue tip and the cue ball.

A crossword (or crossword puzzle) is a word game consisting of a grid of black and white squares, into which solvers enter words or phrases ("entries") crossing each other horizontally ("across") and vertically ("down") according to a set of clues. Each white square is typically filled with one letter, while the black squares are used to separate entries. The first white square in each entry is typically numbered to correspond to its clue.

Crosswords commonly appear in newspapers and magazines. The earliest crosswords that resemble their modern form were popularized by the New York World in the 1910s. Many variants of crosswords are popular around the world, including cryptic crosswords and many language-specific variants.

Crossword construction in modern times usually involves the use of software. Constructors choose a theme (except for themeless puzzles), place the theme answers in a grid which is usually symmetric, fill in the rest of the grid, and then write clues.

Crossword grids such as those appearing in most North American newspapers and magazines consist mainly of solid regions of uninterrupted white squares, separated more sparsely by shaded squares. Every letter is "checked" (i.e. is part of both an "across" word and a "down" word) and usually each answer must contain at least three letters. In such puzzles shaded squares are typically limited to about one-sixth of the total. Crossword grids elsewhere, such as in Britain, South Africa, India and Australia, have a lattice-like structure, with a higher percentage of shaded squares (around 25%), leaving about half the letters in an answer unchecked. For example, if the top row has an answer running all the way across, there will often be no across answers in the second row.

Another tradition in puzzle design (in North America, India, and Britain particularly) is that the grid should have 180-degree rotational symmetry, so that its pattern appears the same if the paper is turned upside down. Most puzzle designs also require that all white cells be orthogonally contiguous (that is, connected in one mass through shared sides, to form a single polyomino).

Substantial variants from the usual forms exist. Two of the common ones are barred crosswords, which use bold lines between squares (instead of shaded squares) to separate answers, and circular designs, with answers entered either radially or in concentric circles. "Free form" crosswords ("criss-cross" puzzles), which have simple, asymmetric designs, are often seen on school worksheets, children's menus, and other entertainment for children. Grids forming shapes other than squares are also occasionally used.

Puzzles are often one of several standard sizes. For example, many weekday newspaper puzzles (such as the American New York Times crossword puzzle) are 1515 squares, while weekend puzzles may be 2121, 2323, or 2525. The New York Times puzzles also set a common pattern for American crosswords by increasing in difficulty throughout the week: their Monday puzzles are the easiest and the puzzles get harder each day until Saturday. Their larger Sunday puzzle is about the same level of difficulty as a weekday-size Thursday puzzle.[1] This has led U.S. solvers to use the day of the week as a shorthand when describing how hard a puzzle is: e.g. an easy puzzle may be referred to as a "Monday" or a "Tuesday", a medium-difficulty puzzle as a "Wednesday", and a truly difficult puzzle as a "Saturday".

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