19to24
32to2724to28
27to3218to23
31to2723to26
30to2328to24
27to3124to27
31to2420to18,

which leaves Black with two kings to one, when he wins in ten or twelve moves.

This last is an instructive position, as it shows how the greater force must conquer. Generally the same result happens in other and more vastly important contests. The game of Draughts, like the game of war, can only be successfully played by an intimate union of strategy and might.

THE MOVE.

If each player had equal skill, and each made the proper move, then the player who took the first move would win. This sentence sounds like a truism, but it is open to argument. Throughout every game it is important to know which of the two players ‘has the move’—that is, the power to fix his adversary man for man on every available square. The first moves of a game do not directly affect its final result, but when the men have become fewer and fewer, it is of the greatest consequence to know on which side lies the forcing power. To make this plain, place a white man on square 4, the top right-hand corner, and a black man on square 30, the second from the left in the lowermost row of squares. Black, having to play, moves from 30 to 26, and do what he may, White must be stopped at square 19. Try it. White, having to play first, cannot, on the contrary, prevent his opponent from making a king. This simply shows the theory of Having the Move.

To discover whether you Have the Move, several plans are at your service. The easiest is this: Count one for each man of both colours which stand on columns having a white square at the foot. If it is your turn, and the total of the addition be odd, you Have the Move; if it is your opponent’s turn to play, the move is with him.

Place the men as in the following [diagram], and you will soon find that either colour moving first has the move, and therefore ought to win.

The Move.—Either colour to play first and Have the Move.

Another Plan, by some considered more certain, is this:—