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.
Notation
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.