Notation & Reading Games

Why International Draughts uses numbers

Chess uses algebraic notation (e.g. Nf3) because it has six different piece types and 64 squares, so letter-based coordinates are compact. International Draughts has only two piece types (man and king) and only 50 playing squares. Instead of row+column, the sport settled on a simple numbering: each dark square gets a single number from 1 to 50. This 1–50 scheme is the modern international standard used by the FMJD (Fédération Mondiale du Jeu de Dames).

The numbering

Squares are numbered following the standard board diagram — Black at the top, White at the bottom — starting at the top-left and running left to right, row by row, down to the bottom-right:

• Row 1 (Black's back row): squares 1–5
• Row 2: squares 6–10
• Row 3: squares 11–15
• Row 4: squares 16–20
• Row 5: squares 21–25
• Row 6: squares 26–30
• Row 7: squares 31–35
• Row 8: squares 36–40
• Row 9: squares 41–45
• Row 10 (White's back row): squares 46–50

So Black's pieces begin on 1–20, and White's pieces begin on 31–50. Squares 21–30 start empty. Every diagonal line on the board corresponds to a predictable number sequence. After an hour of playing you will recognise most squares at sight.

Recording moves

A quiet move is written as from-to, separated by a hyphen. Example: 32-28 means "the piece on 32 moves to 28".

A capture is written with an x instead of a hyphen: 28x19 means "the piece on 28 captures to 19". If multiple pieces are captured in one sequence, the landing squares are chained: 28x19x30x10 means a three-jump sequence with final landing on square 10.

A move number precedes the White move, and the two colours' moves are separated by whitespace: 14. 32-28 18-23 means move 14, White played 32-28 and Black played 18-23. In books, the same format appears with periods and spacing varying by publisher — but the content is always identical.

Annotation symbols

The FMJD rulebook lists a compact set of conventional signs:

• - — a quiet move
• x — a capture
• ! — a strong move
• !! — a brilliant move (only used sparingly)
• ? — a mistake
• ?? — a blunder
• ?! — looks weak but may have hidden point
• !? — interesting but objectively doubtful
• * — forced move
• + — winning
• = — drawn or equal
• +1, +2, etc. — men won
• -1, -2, etc. — men lost
• a.l. — ad libitum, meaning multiple captures lead to the same result

Books and magazines also use broader chess-style evaluation symbols such as ± or +−, but those are commentary conventions rather than the short FMJD core list.

Reading an annotated game

A typical annotated game in a book or magazine looks like this:

1. 32-28  19-23
2. 28x19  14x23
3. 33-29  17-22! — a novelty at the time, preparing 22-28
4. 39-33  11-17
5. 44-39  6-11
6. 50-44  1-6
7. 31-27  22x31
8. 36x27 (±) — White has strong centre control
            

To read this, play the moves on a real board (or a digital one). The annotations in parentheses are the commentator's evaluation at that moment. Don't rush — spend a full minute on each move and try to guess the next one before looking. That exercise, repeated across 50 master games, will dramatically sharpen your play.

PDN: the digital format

For databases and online tools, games are stored in PDN (Portable Draughts Notation) format, a plain-text format similar to chess's PGN. FMJD now publishes PDN 3.0 as the official portable notation standard. A PDN file contains metadata (event, date, players, result) followed by the game moves in the standard notation shown above. If you ever want to analyse your own games with an engine or share them with another player, PDN is the universal format.

Practical tip: record your games

The single most underrated training habit in draughts is writing down your own games. Even a short tournament game, recorded and reviewed the next day with a clear head, will reveal mistakes you never noticed while playing. Keep a notebook of your games and write a 3-sentence lesson at the bottom of each one. After a year of this, you will have a personal manual of your own recurring weaknesses — and once you know them, you can fix them.