Shashki is played by two people, on opposite sides of a playing board, alternating moves.
One player has blue pieces, and the other has red pieces.
Pieces move diagonally and pieces of the opponent are captured by jumping over them.
The playable surface consists only of the dark squares. A piece may only move into an unoccupied square.
Capturing is mandatory. A piece that is captured is removed from the board. In all variants, the player who has no pieces left or cannot move anymore has lost the game.
Uncrowned pieces ("shashka") move one step diagonally forwards and capture other pieces by making two steps in the same direction, jumping over the opponent's piece on the intermediate square.
Shashka can jump side to side.
Multiple opposing pieces may be captured in a single turn provided this is done by successive jumps made by a single piece.
Shashka may also capture (diagonally) backwards.
Notice that captured pieces are removed from the board only after capturing is finished.
When shashka reach the crownhead or queens row (the farthest row forward), they become queens and acquire additional powers including the ability to move forward and backwards as far as they want in diagonals.
If a shashka touches the queens row from a jump and it can continue to jump backwards, it has to jump backwards as queen.