Checkers - The Primeminister of all Games
Draughts (British English) or checkers (American English) is an ancient game. It is believed that the earliest form of checkers was a game discovered at an archeological dig at Ur in Irag, carbon dating sets the game at 3000 BC.
Egyptian paintings and inscriptions from 1400 BC have featured a game called Alquerque which was played on a 5x5 board and was very popular.
Sometime around 1100 AD, a Frenchman got the idea of playing the game on a chess board and played with 12 pieces to a side. This game was called "Fierges" or "Ferses". The rules were soon modified to make jumping mandatory which made the game more challenging. The French called this version "Jeu Force". The older version was considered more of a social game for women and was called "Le Jeu Plaisant De Dames".
As the rules for the game became more formalized, the gameÂs popularity began to spread. Books were written on the game as early as the mid 1500's. In England, William Payne, a mathematician, wrote his own treatise in 1756.
In 1847, the first world championship was awarded. It was soon realized that certain opening moves always gave one side an advantage so more rule changes were made. Two move restrictions were developed for expert players that actually began the game in a random manner. Today even three move restrictions are used in tournament checkers.
The most popular version of the game today is international draughts (also called Polish draughts (polska gra in Polish) because once a Pole living at the French royal court decided to enlarge the board from 8x8 to 10x10 in order to perform more spectacular capturing combinations) which is played on a 10 x 10 board with 20 pieces on a side. It is mainly played in the Netherlands, France, some eastern European countries, parts of Africa, and parts of the former USSR.
TodayÂs game is English draughts (or American checkers). The game is played on an 8 x 8 board with 12 pieces on each side. Red moves first. Men (the uncrowned pieces) can only move and capture forward. When there is more than one way for a player to jump, one may choose which sequence to make, not necessarily the sequence that will result in the greatest number of captures.
There are many other variations, each with slight rule changes. Brazilian checkers, Canadian checkers, Pool checkers, Spanish checkers (also called Spanish pool checkers), Russian checkers (also called shashki checkers or Russian shashki checkers), Italian checkers, Turkish draughts (a common form of checkers played in the Middle-East is also known as Dama) and many others.
Becauseue there are so many variations of checkers, some games are often confused with the game. Halma is a game similar in appearance to checkers but is actually very different. The pieces can move in any direction and jump over any other piece - friend or enemy. Pieces are not captured. Each player starts with 19 (2-player) or 13 (4-player) pieces all in one corner and tries to move them all into the opposite corner. Another game is Chinese checkers which isn't Chinese or checkers at all. Chinese checkers is based on Halma and uses a star-shaped board divided into triangles.
The first computer checkers program was created by Arthur L. Samuel in 1952. As computers improved over the years, programming has also improved. Early checkers programs required the user to calculate moves on paper because computers were not ready for that type of use. Today's computer programs make use of databases that include every possible combination of moves. This means that today's programs pay less attention to game strategy and utilize the data base of moves as the default.
Regardless of the mechanism, checkers is as popular today was it was 1000Âs of years ago. The game is so popular, that the opinion is if chess is the king of all games, then checkers is the prime minister.
Egyptian paintings and inscriptions from 1400 BC have featured a game called Alquerque which was played on a 5x5 board and was very popular.
Sometime around 1100 AD, a Frenchman got the idea of playing the game on a chess board and played with 12 pieces to a side. This game was called "Fierges" or "Ferses". The rules were soon modified to make jumping mandatory which made the game more challenging. The French called this version "Jeu Force". The older version was considered more of a social game for women and was called "Le Jeu Plaisant De Dames".
As the rules for the game became more formalized, the gameÂs popularity began to spread. Books were written on the game as early as the mid 1500's. In England, William Payne, a mathematician, wrote his own treatise in 1756.
In 1847, the first world championship was awarded. It was soon realized that certain opening moves always gave one side an advantage so more rule changes were made. Two move restrictions were developed for expert players that actually began the game in a random manner. Today even three move restrictions are used in tournament checkers.
The most popular version of the game today is international draughts (also called Polish draughts (polska gra in Polish) because once a Pole living at the French royal court decided to enlarge the board from 8x8 to 10x10 in order to perform more spectacular capturing combinations) which is played on a 10 x 10 board with 20 pieces on a side. It is mainly played in the Netherlands, France, some eastern European countries, parts of Africa, and parts of the former USSR.
TodayÂs game is English draughts (or American checkers). The game is played on an 8 x 8 board with 12 pieces on each side. Red moves first. Men (the uncrowned pieces) can only move and capture forward. When there is more than one way for a player to jump, one may choose which sequence to make, not necessarily the sequence that will result in the greatest number of captures.
There are many other variations, each with slight rule changes. Brazilian checkers, Canadian checkers, Pool checkers, Spanish checkers (also called Spanish pool checkers), Russian checkers (also called shashki checkers or Russian shashki checkers), Italian checkers, Turkish draughts (a common form of checkers played in the Middle-East is also known as Dama) and many others.
Becauseue there are so many variations of checkers, some games are often confused with the game. Halma is a game similar in appearance to checkers but is actually very different. The pieces can move in any direction and jump over any other piece - friend or enemy. Pieces are not captured. Each player starts with 19 (2-player) or 13 (4-player) pieces all in one corner and tries to move them all into the opposite corner. Another game is Chinese checkers which isn't Chinese or checkers at all. Chinese checkers is based on Halma and uses a star-shaped board divided into triangles.
The first computer checkers program was created by Arthur L. Samuel in 1952. As computers improved over the years, programming has also improved. Early checkers programs required the user to calculate moves on paper because computers were not ready for that type of use. Today's computer programs make use of databases that include every possible combination of moves. This means that today's programs pay less attention to game strategy and utilize the data base of moves as the default.
Regardless of the mechanism, checkers is as popular today was it was 1000Âs of years ago. The game is so popular, that the opinion is if chess is the king of all games, then checkers is the prime minister.
posted by I'm not Bob Vila... at
1:56 PM
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