A Short History of Brazilian Draughts

Where the game comes from · Updated August 20, 2026

Esta página em português: História das damas brasileiras

Brazilian draughts belongs to the wider draughts family — board games of diagonal moves and jumping captures that have been played, in one form or another, for centuries across Europe, the Americas and the Arab world. What sets the "Brazilian" version apart is a specific combination: the international rules played on the smaller 8×8 board.

The draughts family, and where the 8×8 games sit in it

Modern draughts descends from alquerque, a much older capture-by-jumping game played across the Mediterranean world, and took its recognisable form in Europe over the last few centuries. That ancestry split first by direction — the diagonal games of western Europe against the orthogonal branch that survives as Turkish draughts — and then, within the diagonal branch, by board size.

One line kept the game on the traditional 8×8 board, the board used for chess; it includes American checkers as well as several "international rules" variants. The other moved to a larger 10×10 board and became international draughts, the game most associated with competitive play in continental Europe. Brazilian draughts is what happens when the second line's rules come back to the first line's board.

The Brazilian version

Brazilian draughts — jogo de damas in Portuguese — is the 8×8 game played with the international rules: men that capture backward, flying kings, and the compulsory maximum-capture rule. In effect it takes the depth of the 10×10 game and puts it on the familiar 64-square board, which keeps games quicker and lowers the barrier to entry. The game is widely played across Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking countries, and the same 8×8 international ruleset is popular under different names elsewhere in the world.

The national body is the Confederação Brasileira de Jogo de Damas, which represents Brazil within the World Draughts Federation. We also publish this page in Portuguese, as história das damas brasileiras.

Why the smaller board caught on

There is a practical reason this combination spread rather than remaining a curiosity: it needs no new equipment. A 10×10 board with twenty pieces a side is a purchase; an 8×8 board with twelve is in half the households in the world already, doubling as a chessboard. Anyone who owns a chess set owns a Brazilian draughts set without knowing it.

The second reason is time. The same rules on a smaller board produce sharper, shorter games — the tactics of the international game without the long manoeuvring phase that forty pieces demand. That makes it the natural bridge for a player moving up from ordinary checkers, and a genuinely serious game in its own right rather than a simplified one.

"Draughts-64": the competitive home of the 8×8 game

In international competition the 8×8 variants are grouped together as draughts-64 — named for the number of squares — as distinct from the 10×10 game. The World Draughts Federation has run world championships in this cycle since 1985, and the very first of them was played in Brazilian draughts, in Brazil. Further championships followed in Brazilian cities in 1987, 1989 and 1993, and women's championships in the variant were held in 2007 and 2018.

The draughts-64 circuit draws strong players from well outside Brazil — international grandmasters from the 10×10 world are regular participants, precisely because the rules are the ones they already know. That crossover is the clearest evidence that the smaller board did not produce a smaller game.

The other 8×8 games it shares a board with

Brazilian draughts is not the only game to put strong rules on the small board, and the differences between the 8×8 variants are worth knowing, because they are the reason a player from one of them can lose badly at another while recognising every piece on the table.

• American checkers — the same board and setup, but men capture forward only, kings move one square, and any capture will do. The gentlest member of the family, and the one most English speakers mean by "checkers".
• Brazilian draughts — backward captures, flying kings, compulsory maximum capture. International rules, small board.
• Russian draughts and pool checkers — other 8×8 games with backward captures and flying kings, differing in details such as whether the maximum capture is compulsory and what happens to a man that crowns mid-sequence.

Those details are not trivia. Whether you must take the longest capture changes what a sacrifice is worth, and whether a crowning man keeps capturing changes which combinations exist at all. Our differences page sets the rules out side by side.

The game today

Draughts is organised internationally by the World Draughts Federation (FMJD), which oversees the main variants and their competitions. Alongside formal play, the game thrives casually — in homes, cafés and, increasingly, online, where anyone can find a game in seconds. That accessibility is exactly why Brazilian draughts travels so well: the rules are rich, but the board and pieces are the ones almost everyone already recognises.

It is also the variant this site sees most interest in after American checkers, which is part of why it was the second one we built. If you have only ever played ordinary checkers, it is the shortest step to a game with real tactical depth — nothing new to buy, nothing new to set up, and three rules to learn.

Play a piece of it

The best way to appreciate a game's character is to play it. Brazilian draughts rewards calculation and punishes loose pieces — try a game against the computer and you will feel the difference from ordinary checkers within a few moves.

Learn the rules, compare it with other games on the differences page, or read the FAQ.