Alejandro reached out and grabbed a single round piece and began to explain.
"This right here is a checkers (dama) piece, there are 12 pieces for each player...."
He pointed to his piece that has a red sticker sticking underneath, "this is my edit of the piece to let others know when a piece is promoted..."
Basically, the rules are simple.
All the pieces lie on the same color of tile.
Imagine the chess board, but instead of the pieces lying on every tile in the first two rows, it chooses only one color, either white or black, and lays the pieces across three rows.
The pieces only move diagonally, and to 'eat', you need to be one space diagonal a piece and there needs to be a free space behind the piece you are eating. Lifting your piece across onto the free space and taking your opponent's piece.
First one to 'eat' all the opponent's pieces wins the game.
"House rules..."
I nod listening to more of his explanation and visualizations on the board in front.
"There! I think you're up to speed now!"
"Shall we begin?" He smiles widely, for some reason I feel threatened.
"O-okay." I gulped. I did NOT mean to stutter.
I made my first move--