Checkers Game Rules And History

Checkers is also identified as draughts, a name referred to various different board games. Checkers is derived from the American name, but in British and other nations that speak English, the game is known as draughts.

Rules of the Game

In most checkers game consist of two players. Both players are opposite at each end of a board. One player plays with the light pieces while the other plays with the dark ones.

They take each turn by moving the pieces diagonally from every square to the other. In each type of checkers, the pieces of another player can be taken by jumping over the piece of the opponent and taken by another opponent from aboard.

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The History About Checkers

The checkers game is older than you can imagine. Here are some historical facts about this game:

  • Most people believe that modern games were advanced from the similar games played back in 1400 B.C known as Quirkat or Alquerque. However, a game of checkers was first played in ancient Rome, Egypt, India, and Greece.

Just similar to the modern type, it also used two sets of pieces with different colors. It was also played on a board of 5 x 5 grid including 10 pieces each side with an objective of capturing all the pieces on the opponent’s side.

  • The next improvement towards the current checkers game is a thought that is expected to derive from southern France in the 13th century. The piece and rules of Albuquerque have been expanded so that it can be played on 8 x 8 grid board. The game is identified as Fieges, which refers to each piece. Force is a name specified to a queen on a chess.

 

  • During the 15th century, in queen’s earlier association agreed that the name should be changed to Jeu-De-Dames, which normally shortened as Dames.

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  • By 16th century Dames were very common in France. It involves many alternatives and among this options was forces capture variant whereby the participant had to capture the other opponent’s piece rather than making different moves. Hence the variant became named as Jeu Force.
  • The Jeu Force game was derived from England where it was titled by the name draughts while North America referred to it as checkers.
  • In France, the name Dames minus a “forced capture” rule was yet famous with the name Le-Jeu-Plaisant-De Dames which was shortened as pleasant. During the 18th century, this France game was later changed into 10 x 10 grid involving 20 pieces on both sides. This game is currently still playing and is recognized as the Continental or International Draught.
  • Both checkers Draught and Checkers also involved in the international tournament. The first Draught tournament took place in 1847.

There are numerous different games all around the world, but the Chinese checkers is not among them, because that name has nothing to do with the county of China, but it originates from Germany.

In 1900 it was when the game was placed in the market and that’s the reason it was named Chinese checkers to make people familiarize with checkers and also to add the game an oriented flavor as a market trick.