DaMath is a math board game coined from the word dama, a Filipino checker game, and

mathematics. It was invented by Jesus Huenda, a high school teacher from Sorsogon,
Philippines. It became very popular in the 1980s and until now played in many schools in the
Philippines.

DaMath can be used to practice the four fundamental operations and also the order of operations.
It has numerous variations, but in the tutorial below, we will discuss the Integers DaMath. Note
that explaining this game is quite complicated, so I have divided the tutorial into three posts.

The DaMath Board

The board is composed of 64 squares in alternating black and white just like the chessboard. The
four basic mathematical operations are written on white squares as shown in Figure 1. Each square
is identified by a (column, row) notation. The top-left square, for example, is in column 0 and row
7, so it is denoted by (0,7).

Figure 1 – The DaMath Board

DaMath is played by two opposing players. In this article, we will refer to them as the Blue
Player and Red Player. The players take turns in moving the pieces.
Figure 2 – The initial position of the pieces

The initial position of the pieces is shown in Figure 2. To start a DaMath game, a toss coin can
be done to determine who will make the first move.

Moving the Pieces

The pieces are moved by sliding forward diagonally to a vacant adjoining square. This means
that you can only move the pieces to white squares. All movements have to be diagonally
forward; backward movements can only be made when capturing pieces or can be made by using
a dama. A dama (like a Queen in chess) can also move backward and capture pieces backward.
We will discuss the movements of damas in another post.

Suppose the Red Player moves first, he can move any of the four pieces in the front row one
square forward diagonally. For instance, in Figure 3, the Red Player moved 6 to (2, 3) and then,
the Blue Player moved -9 to (7,4).
Figure 3 – Position of the board after two moves

We summarize the movements of the two players. Take note that the notation below is written on
the scorecard during tournaments and school competitions.

First Move: Red 6 → (2,3); Blue -6 → (7,4).

Capturing the Pieces and Scoring

A piece captures an opposing piece by jumping over it diagonally and landing on the adjoining
vacant square. Capturing is mandatory. In Figure 4, the Red Player moved -1 to (5, 3). The Blue
Player is obliged to capture -1 using -9. He can do this by jumping -9 over -1 landing to (5,2) and
removing -1 from the board. Here, -9 captured -1 and landed on a square with a + sign.
Therefore, the score will be (-9) + (-1) = -10.

Blue Player’s Score: (-9) + (-1) = -10

Figure 4 – Capturing a piece

Figure 4 shows the position of the pieces after the Blue Player captured -1. It is now the Red
Player’s turn to capture -9. As we can see, he can choose to use a 7 or a 10 to capture -9.
However, using a 7 will yield a higher score. Using a 7 will result to 7 – (-9) = 16, while using a
10 will result to 10 + (-9) = 1.

Figure 5 – Capturing a piece

Red Player’s Score: 7 – (-9) = 16

We can see that the Red Player is ahead of points. The players can continue playing and add the
obtained scores each time a piece is captured. The player with the higher points at the end of the
game wins the game.
A piece can also capture backward. In the board position below, if it is the Blue Player’s turn to
move, he can oblige the Red Player to capture 2 by moving 2 to the square on (4,5). The Red
Player will have to capture 2 and -11 x 2 = -22 will be added to his score (i.e. Blue Player’s
advantage).

A piece can also capture backward. In the board position below, if it is the Blue Player’s turn to
move, he can oblige the Red Player to capture 2 by moving 2 to (4,5). The Red Player will have
to capture 2 and -11 x 2 = -22 will be added to his score (i.e. Blue Player’s advantage).

Figure 6 – Capturing backward

In the second part of this post, we are going to discuss capturing multiple pieces.