Board and setup
An 8×8 board, twelve pieces each: Black on the middle six squares of the top and bottom rows, White on the middle six of the left and right files. The four corners start empty and Black moves first.
Abstract strategy / LOA
Lines of Action
How far you go is up to the board.
Also known as: LOA
The charm of Lines of Action is that you never choose how far to move: a piece travels exactly as many squares as there are checkers on the line it moves along.
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LOAABOUT THE GAME
About the game
Lines of Action is a two-player abstract strategy game designed by Claude Soucie, best known through its inclusion in Sid Sackson's A Gamut of Games (1969).
Its rules are remarkably short, yet they make distance itself a function of the position: a piece moves exactly as many squares as there are checkers on the line it is moving along. Every move therefore changes how far every other piece can travel.
The goal is not to take everything but to gather your own remaining pieces into one connected body. That makes capturing double-edged — take a piece and your opponent has one fewer to unite. A stable high-level community only formed in the 1990s, and the game has long been an event at the Computer Olympiad.
Reference：en.wikipedia.org ↗
Rules
Lines of Action — How to play
Youzai Board Game Club — The server implementation governs play here; tournament and other site rules may differ.
Making a move
A piece moves along a row, column or diagonal exactly as many squares as there are checkers on that line — both colours, including the moving piece itself.
Winning and draws
Gather all your remaining pieces into one connected group to win, with diagonals counting. A player reduced to a single piece is connected by definition and wins.
Rules on this site
You may jump your own pieces but never an enemy piece. You may land on an empty square or capture an enemy piece, but never on your own.
Helpful examples
- Distances keep changing: one more checker on a line means one more square to travel, so both captures and your opponent's moves alter how far you can go next turn.
- Pinning enemy checkers against the edge of the board is a strong idea — a piece on the rim has fewer lines to move along and is easier to shut down completely.
- Do not capture greedily: reducing your opponent to a single checker hands them the win outright, and thinning their force only makes their pieces easier to unite.
Complete beginner guide
From setup to the end of the game
Read these steps in order to complete your first game. This guide combines public rules with this site’s server implementation; where versions differ, this site’s ruling applies.
The rule in one line
Gather all of your own pieces into a single connected body — diagonals count — and you win. The catch is that you never choose how far to move; the position does.
Board and opening
An 8×8 board, twelve pieces each. Black takes the middle six squares of the top and bottom rows (b–g), White the middle six of the left and right files (ranks 2–7), and the four corners start empty. Black moves first.
How far you move
Pick a line — row, column or diagonal — and your piece travels exactly as many squares as there are checkers on that line, counting both colours and the moving piece itself. The line runs across the whole board, so count in both directions. At the start the c-file holds only c8 and c1, so c8 can only go two squares, to c6.
What you may jump
You may jump over your own pieces but never over an enemy piece. You may land on an empty square or on an enemy piece, capturing it, but never on one of your own.
Winning
The first player whose remaining pieces form one connected group wins, with diagonal contact counting. A player reduced to a single piece is connected by definition and wins outright — so reducing your opponent to one piece hands them the game. If one move connects both players at once, this site follows current tournament practice and scores it a draw.
Why capturing is risky
More pieces is not automatically better. Take one of your opponent's and they have one fewer to unite; capturing also changes the counts on the lines, which changes how far your own pieces can travel next turn.
General rules reference：en.wikipedia.org ↗