Keny (game)

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8
a7 black circle
b7 black circle
c7 black circle
d7 black circle
e7 black circle
f7 black circle
g7 black circle
h7 black circle
a6 black circle
b6 black circle
c6 black circle
d6 black circle
e6 black circle
f6 black circle
g6 black circle
h6 black circle
a3 white circle
b3 white circle
c3 white circle
d3 white circle
e3 white circle
f3 white circle
g3 white circle
h3 white circle
a2 white circle
b2 white circle
c2 white circle
d2 white circle
e2 white circle
f2 white circle
g2 white circle
h2 white circle
8
77
66
55
44
33
22
11
abcdefgh
Diagram 1: Starting positions for Keny

Keny (Russian: Кены) is a draughts game played in the Caucasus and nearby areas of Turkey. Keny is actually the Ossetian name for the game as it is most popular in Ossetia, a region in the Caucasus. In Armenia, it is called Vayut tama (Russian: вают тама). The game is also known as Caucasian checkers (Russian: кавказские шашки). There may be slight variations of the game, but the rules described here are from Nikita Sokolov (Никита Соколов) from his article "It's been a while since we took checkers into our hands..." ("Давненько не брали мы в руки шашек...") (2005).