Draws cannot occur in Liger. Mark Steere designed Liger in August, 2009.
Liger is a two player game played with a Checkers set. The initial setup is shown in Figure 1. Only the dark squares are used in play.
Draws cannot occur in Liger. Mark Steere designed Liger in August, 2009.
On your turn you can move a single checker of your color, or you can move a 2-stack comprised of your checker on top and your opponent's checker on
the bottom. The stack to be moved can be a complete stack in itself, of height one or two, or it can be the top one or two checkers of a
larger stack. Only the top one or two checkers of a stack are ever picked up and moved. See Figure 2.
You are never allowed to move a stack of two of your own checkers, an enemy singleton, or a stack with an enemy checker on top.
When moving a singleton or a 2-stack to an already occupied square, simply place it on top of the occupying stack. There are no restrictions on stack
height or composition. See Figure 3.
You can never make more than one move during your turn .
A player can move one of his checkers, or a mixed color 2-stack with his own color showing (at the top of the stack), one square diagonally forward. See Figure 4.
If you have less checkers showing on the board (singletons and stack tops) than your opponent does, you can move one of your singletons backward onto
a showing enemy checker. In Figure 5a Red has only one checker showing, less than Blue's two showing checkers, so Red can move a singleton backward
onto a showing blue checker. You can't move a 2-stack backward. See Figure 5b. You can't move backward leaving an occupied square behind. See Figure 5c.
You can't move back onto an unoccupied square or a square with your color showing. See Figure 5d.
Players can “bear off” a single checker of their own color from their farthest row, removing it from play.
The checker to be borne off must be either a singleton or the top checker of a stack. See Figure 6.
You must either move or bear off during your turn, but not both. You will always have an opportunity to do one or the other. A player can never, under any circumstances, bear a checker off from his nearest row, or remove enemy checkers from the board.
You lose the game if, at the conclusion of your turn, your opponent has no checkers showing. In Figure 7a, it's Red's turn. Red must not
cover Blue's only showing checker. In Figure 7b, Red can cover Blue's
only showing checker with a single red checker because in doing so Red also uncovers a blue checker, leaving one blue checker showing at the conclusion
of Red's turn.
In Figure 8a, Red must move to uncover a blue checker. Red loses the game in Figure 8b because, since he can only make one move during his turn, he is unable to uncover a blue checker. It's Red's turn to move in Figure 8c. Red loses since he must move and his only available move covers Blue's only showing checker.
The first player to bear off all of his checkers wins. You automatically win if your opponent is unable to leave you a showing checker at the conclusion of his turn.
Feel free to publish this rule sheet, and to program the
game of Liger for online or offline play. No licensing fee or royalties are
expected. However please don’t change the name or the rules, and please
attribute the game to me, Mark Steere. My other games can be found at
marksteeregames.com.