Damath rules
Damath is dama with arithmetic. It was invented in the late 1970s by Jesus L. Huenda, a teacher from Sorsogon, and is played as a Department of Education competition in schools across the Philippines.
The board
An ordinary 8×8 dama board, except that every playing square carries an arithmetic operation. The layout is fixed, and it is rotationally symmetric — so neither player gets the friendlier half.
| · | + | · | − | · | ÷ | · | × |
| − | · | + | · | × | · | ÷ | · |
| · | ÷ | · | × | · | + | · | − |
| × | · | ÷ | · | − | · | + | · |
| · | + | · | − | · | ÷ | · | × |
| − | · | + | · | × | · | ÷ | · |
| · | ÷ | · | × | · | + | · | − |
| × | · | ÷ | · | − | · | + | · |
The chips
Each player has twelve chips numbered 0 to 11, every value used once. This is Whole-Number Damath, the entry-level variant; others swap the values for integers, fractions or radicals while keeping the same board.
| Row | Side | Chips, left to right |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | Blue / Black | 11 · 8 · 5 · 2 |
| 7 | Blue / Black | 0 · 3 · 10 · 7 |
| 6 | Blue / Black | 9 · 6 · 1 · 4 |
| 3 | Red | 4 · 1 · 6 · 9 |
| 2 | Red | 7 · 10 · 3 · 0 |
| 1 | Red | 2 · 5 · 8 · 11 |
Moving
Chips move one square diagonally forward. A chip that stops on the far row is crowned a dama and may then slide any distance along an open diagonal, forwards or backwards.
Capturing
Capturing is compulsory — passing is not allowed — and when several captures are available you must take the one that captures the most chips. Between two captures of the same size, a dama's capture takes precedence.
Scoring
This is what makes it Damath. When you capture, the score is:
your chip operation captured chip
The operation is the one printed on the square your chip lands on — not the square it came from. So a 7 landing on a × square after taking a 3 scores 21.
- A dama taking, or being taken, doubles the result.
- A dama taking a dama quadruples it.
- Division is recorded to two decimal places.
- Dividing by a chip worth zero scores nothing.
- In a chain capture, each hop is scored separately and added.
Winning
At the end, each player adds the value of their surviving chips, with a dama counted twice, to the points they have taken. The higher total wins.
This is the part that surprises dama players: running out of chips does not lose you the game. If you banked enough points on the way down, you can finish with nothing on the board and still win.