Breakthrough Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object of the game
• Initial board layout
• Movement and Capture
• Move Notation

Object of the game

To get one of your pieces to the opposite size [sic] of the board.

Initial board layout

The board is 8x8 (columns A to H, rows 1 to 8). One player's pieces ("x") fill rows 8 and 7; the other player's pieces ("o") fill rows 2 and 1. Rows 3 to 6 are empty.

    A B C D E F G H

8   x x x x x x x x
7   x x x x x x x x
6   . . . . . . . .
5   . . . . . . . .
4   . . . . . . . .
3   . . . . . . . .
2   o o o o o o o o
1   o o o o o o o o

Movement and Capture

Pieces move 1 space straight or diagonally forward. You may only capture when moving diagonally.

Move Notation

Since there are only three spaces a piece can move to the move notation is simply "[row][col][LFR]" [sic; the examples give the column letter first], where [LFR] is 'L' for forward-and-left, 'F' for straight forward, and 'R' for forward-and-right. For example, "E2F" means "more [sic] the piece at E2 forward 1 space", and "C7R" means "move C7 diagonally forward to the right".

You may also use a "source-destination" notation. For example, "E2-E3" or "C7-B6".