There is a tendency among board game fans to gravitate to the next new game every few weeks.
That is not surprising. As much as we tend to think everyone is completely enamoured by video games, there are actually dozens of new board games being released nearly weekly these days.
Access to funding through crowd funding platforms such as Kickstarter.com has helped many small companies, and indie designers launch board games in recent years.
The Internet itself has provided a way for designers to share ideas for games which are in essence web-published, the rules available for anyone to access and play.
But as much as there are dozens of new games which deserve attention, gamers should never forget the classics either.
So this week let’s look at Bashni, a game dating back to about 1875, the game’s designer unknown.
Bashni is a traditional Russian game in the checkers family.
The game is identical to Shashki (Russian Checkers) in the rules regarding movement, capture, and promotion, but every time a piece is captured, it is put at the bottom of the capturing piece or stack. If the captured piece is itself on a stack, only the top piece is captured, and the underlying pieces are thus “liberated”. This means pieces are never permanently removed, but stacks get steadily higher throughout the game.
Bashni is played on the now familiar 8x8 checkerboard.
The initial position has a player’s piece on the three rows closest to them, all pieces on the squares of one colour on the board.
The goal of Bashni is to capture all opponents’ checkers or to block them leaving the opponent without any legal moves.
To play Bashni we need to look at the rules of Shashki first.
Ordinary checkers can move diagonally forward to an adjacent cell.
When an ordinary checker ends its move on the last row of the board it is promoted to a king, which is standard to most checker variants. If an ordinary checker reaches the last row by capturing an enemy piece (i.e. by jumping over it) and it can continue to capture additional enemy pieces as a king then the move should be continued.
It is a king in Shashki, and Bashni, which are interesting. Kings can move any number of cells diagonally (like a bishop in Chess). Such freedom of movement makes a king very powerful, Kings cannot jump over own pieces or over two or more enemy pieces standing one after another.
In terms of capture an ordinary checker capture can be made both in forward and backward directions by jumping over the enemy piece and placing the own checker on the next empty cell.
However in Bashni, when a single checker (or a king) is captured it’s not removed from the board but is placed below the capturing checker (or king) forming a stack. If several checkers (or kings) are captured during the same move then they are sequentially placed below the capturing checker:
Back to the basic rules of Shashki. A king can capture an enemy piece standing on the same diagonal line if there are no other pieces between them and the next cell or cells in the same direction are empty. The capture is made by jumping over this enemy piece and placing the king on any of the next empty cells. If the same player’s king can continue capturing another enemy piece then it must do it.
While capturing several enemy pieces it is illegal to make sequential jumps in opposite direction.
The capture is mandatory. It means that if the player can capture an enemy piece (or pieces) on his turn then he must do it.
If a player has a choice of jump sequences then he can choose any sequence he wants.
Of course in Bashni the captured pieces become part of the stack.
Any stack is controlled by a player who owns the topmost checker (or king). I use checkers with a dot on one side, so kings are easily identified as a piece with the dot showing.
· A stack moves or captures other checkers or stacks according to the rules of Russian Checkers applying to the topmost checker (or king).
· When a stack or a single piece captures an opponent’s stack, just the topmost piece is taken from that stack and placed below the capturing stack or a piece. The next checker or a king in the stack (beneath the captured topmost one) is considered to be ‘released’ and can be used by its owner on the next move.
· There is much more to Bashni than checkers, with the release of pieces, changing control of stacks, and the fact all pieces stay on the board throughout.
· The game may be 140 years old, but there is a reason we still know of the game. Simply put it is among the best checker-related games ever designed, rounding out my personal triumvirate of favourites alongside Dameo and Lines of Action. These three games would satisfy me if I never played any others.
