The bottle-cap draughts of the kampung — a checkers classic with flying kings, forced captures and a 12×12 grand board. Crown your caps, feast on your rival, and take the title of Tok Haji.
Set the board, pick your rival, and decide who buys teh tarik.
All of these are authentic kampung rule choices — every warung plays slightly differently. Switch any off to taste.
The kampung classic — draughts with Malaysian teeth. Played for generations with bottle caps on a hand-drawn board.
Capture all your opponent's caps, or block them so they cannot move. Two players face off across a checkered board — traditionally 12×12 with 30 caps each (smaller 8×8 and 10×10 boards are also loved). Caps live only on the dark squares.
"Makan semua buah lawan, atau sekat sehingga tidak boleh bergerak."
An ordinary cap moves one square diagonally forward — left or right — onto an empty dark square. Ordinary caps never move or capture backwards.
Jump over an enemy cap diagonally forward and land on the empty square just beyond it. If another capture is available after landing, you must keep jumping — chains of 2, 3, even 9 caps happen! The same cap may never be jumped twice, and jumped caps are only removed once your whole turn ends.
Captures are compulsory. If a capture exists you must take one — even when it hurts. When several caps can capture, tradition applies: if a Haji can eat, the Haji must; otherwise the cap that can eat the most in one chain must do the eating. (You can switch this priority in advanced rules.) Miss a forced capture in a real warung and your opponent confiscates the offending cap — hukum potong!
Land a cap on the far row and it makes the pilgrimage — "naik haji" — becoming a Haji, crowned by stacking a second cap on top. In a long game only two or three caps usually earn the honour.
The Haji is fearsome: it glides any distance along open diagonals, forward or back. It captures from afar — slide to any enemy cap on its diagonal, leap it, and land on any free square beyond. After each meal it may turn and feast again in another direction, for as long as captures remain. A lone Haji can slaughter a whole careless army.
You lose when your last cap is eaten or none of your caps can move. Games can also be drawn — when both sides dance Hajis that can never meet, or by agreement. In Dam Suap (giveaway) everything flips: the first player to lose every cap wins!
March your caps in groups — loners get eaten. Guard the dark squares before your promotion row to deny Hajis. Sacrifice a cap as bait (umpan) to break a wall. And once the enemy crowns a Haji, get one of your own — fast.
Tune the warung to your taste.