1. Alquerque is played on a 5-by-5 board. The lines of the grid indicate permitted moves.

2. Each player selects 12 BEADs the colour of their choice.

3. Players place 10 of their BEADs on the 10 points of the 2 rows closet to them and 2 BEADs on their right of the middle row. This should leave the middle point without a BEAD.

4. Players decide who begins the game by rolling a die.

1. In turns, each player moves 1 BEAD 1 intersection along the marked lines to an adjacent empty point.

2. Players capture BEADs by jumping over an opponent’s BEAD and landing on an empty point beyond it, following the lines on the board.

3. Captures can be chained together if, upon jumping over an opponent’s BEAD and capturing it, the player is adjacent to another BEAD with an empty point beyond.

4. Players can either move their BEAD or capture.

5. Captured BEADs are removed from the board.

1. To win the game, a player needs to capture all their opponent's BEADs or form a position so that their opponent is unable to move.

2. A draw can be agreed at any point during the game if it becomes apparent that no more BEADs can be captured and both players have the same number of BEADs on the board. Draws are common in Alquerque.

1. The game of Alquerque is an ancient game, the forerunner of draughts. A multitude of variants of Alquerque boards have been found indicating the existence of a whole family of Alquerque games and variations.

2. Since it is not widely played today and because no definitive account of the rules is known, the following rules are conjecture based upon a partial description in the Alfonso manuscript of 1283.

3. The game does not appear in literature until late in the 10th century when the Arab author Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani mentioned Qirkat in his 24 volume work Kitab al-Aghani ("Book of Songs"). This work, however, made no mention of the rules of the game.