Initial position

The diagram shows the board and the pieces in the initial position. A cell is identified as the intersection of two oblique files. There are two players, black and white. White begins. Players move - and must move - in turn. Object If a player has no legal move he loses the game. In Draughts, having no move may come about in two ways: the player is either eliminated or blocked completely. In HexDame it is virtually impossible to leave a player literally without a move. Of course a player may be blocked in a strategical or tactical sense, which means he is left without a good move. The game may end in a draw by 3-fold or mutual agreement.

Movement
Capture has precedence over a non-capturing move. If the player to move has no capture to make, he has the following options:

• Moving a man
• Moving a king - a king is a promoted man

A man moves one cell straight or oblique forward, provided it is vacant. If a man ends its move on any of the nine cells of the back rank, it promotes to king. A king moves any distance of free cells along an open line. An important detail concerning promotion has to be addressed. Since men capture by jumping opponent's pieces both forward and backward, a situation may arise where a man, in the course of a capture, visits the backrank without ending its move on it. Be it first established that completing the capture has priority!

In order to promote, a man must end its move on a square of the back rank.
If a man, in the course of a capture, visits a cell of the back rank without ending its move on it, it does not promote!