Bashni's stacking mechanic good twist on checkers

I recently posed a question with the Abstract Nation on Facebook asking what were three games players preferred on an 8x8 checkerboard.

Not surprisingly there was a lot of commonality in answers and IMHO a few gems missed.

So over the coming weeks I’ll offer a few short reviews of what I see as the best games to be played on an 8x8 checkerboard with the added constraint you have only two sets of 24 pieces – basically you buy two matching common checker sets.

This is #7.

Bashni is another older game that really is a good one and it fits the ‘8x8 & 24’ exploration I’m on.

Created 150 years ago – at least Board Game Geek pegs it as from 1875 – this is a game in the Checkers-family out of Russia.

The game is identical to Shashki (Russian Checkers) in the rules regarding movement, capture, and promotion – check them out at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_draughts.

But what makes Bashni most interesting is that 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’.

Pieces are never out of the game – only held hostage if you will.

The mechanic allows pieces to be ‘freed’ which means comebacks at least ‘feel’ more realistic here.

The top checker in a stack determines who controls it, and the entire stack is moved.

A piece/stack can move diagonally forward to an empty cell, as in draughts.

When it reaches the last row, it is promoted to an officer.

An officer can move forward and backwards over a diagonal line of empty cells -- a bishop move in chess.

Capture is mandatory and multiple. Players must choose their capture sequence, it is not mandatory to maximize the number of capturing pieces.

Basic pieces captures by the checkers short leap, while officers capture by the long leap.

A players loses if they have no valid moves.

Bashni was the inspiration for Laska, Chess world champion Emanuel Lasker's stacking game created in 1911. It utilizes a smaller 7x7 board but frankly doesn’t seem to add much to recommend it over the original.

This is a pretty dynamic game with captures and releases happening with regularity one the two sides ‘meet-in-the-middle’.

The potential to regain pieces – multiple ones at times – really keeps one ‘in the game’, and when it happens is just plain gratifying.

This one is an elite offering among 8x8 & 24 games.