49 Fun Facts About Checkers

In American checkers, which side makes the first move?

The darker pieces. The dark side, called Black whatever colour the men really are, opens every game of American checkers; international draughts does it the other way round and gives the first move to White.

What older game is checkers developed from?

Alquerque. The Moors brought it to Spain, where it was played along the lines of a five-by-five grid, capturing by jumps; checkers began when players moved the same game onto a chessboard.

The word "draughts" derives from which verb?

To draw. A 'draught' was an old word for a move in a game, probably from the way a piece is drawn, or dragged, across the board; Americans named the game after its chequered board instead.

On what size board is international draughts played?

10×10. The hundred-square game is the most widely played form outside English-speaking countries, which have stayed with the 64-square board.

Which country gives its name to the checkers variant played on a 12×12 board?

Canada. French settlers in Quebec are credited with the game, which sets thirty men a side on the big board; the same 144 squares are used in Sri Lanka and parts of South-East Asia.

Who led the team that weakly solved American checkers in 2007?

Jonathan Schaeffer. His project began in 1989 as an attempt to beat the human world champion, and dozens of computers then worked on the full solution, with one long pause, until 2007.

With perfect play by both sides, how does a game of American checkers end?

In a draw. The 2007 proof showed that neither side can force a win from the starting position, which means every decisive game of checkers ever played has turned on somebody's mistake.

In American checkers, which squares of the board do the pieces ever occupy?

Only the dark squares. Every move and every jump is diagonal, so a piece can never change colour, and half the board goes unused from the first move to the last.

In checkers, what is the row where a man is promoted called?

The kings row. It is also called the crownhead, and the promotion is made visible by 'crowning': a second piece is stacked on top of the man.

What is the informal name for a piece that can move any number of squares diagonally?

A flying king. It may slide any distance along a diagonal and capture from afar, as kings do in international draughts; an American king gains only the power to step and jump backwards.

In most non-English languages, checkers is called by a word meaning what?

Ladies. The French play le jeu de dames, the Germans Damenspiel and the Spanish damas, all from the word for a lady, while English named the game after its moves or its board.

Which king had the rules of checkers' ancestor written into his thirteenth-century Book of Games?

Alfonso X of Castile. His Libro de los Juegos describes a game played on twenty-five points, capturing by jumps, which the Moors had brought to Spain.

Boards from ancient Ur were once hailed as early checkers sets, but what kind of game were they really for?

A race game with dice. Each player ran seven pieces around the board on the throw of pyramid-shaped dice, which makes the Royal Game of Ur a distant cousin of backgammon, not of checkers.

Which form of checkers moves its pieces straight ahead and sideways, using all 64 squares?

Turkish draughts. It is the one major form that never went diagonal: each side lines up sixteen men on its second and third rows, and a promoted piece sweeps along ranks and files like a chess rook.

Early checkers was known in French as Fierges, a name it shared with which chess piece?

Queen. The medieval chess queen, the fierge or fers, was a weak piece that stepped one square diagonally, just as a checkers man does; only later did she become the strongest piece on the board.

Under tournament rules, what must a checkers player do after touching one of his own pieces?

Move that piece. A century ago, touching a piece that had no legal move cost the game outright; today's rules give one caution first, and a player may straighten a piece only after saying so.

In old checkers rules, what was it called when a player who missed a capture had the offending piece removed?

Huffing. The opponent lifted off the piece that should have jumped and then made his own move, 'huff and move'; modern tournament rules drop the penalty and simply require the jump.

Which rule sets Italian draughts apart from the American game?

Men cannot capture kings. An Italian king can be taken only by another king, so men alone can never remove it from the board; the American rules let a man jump a king.

By which national name was international draughts, the main continental form of checkers, long known?

Polish. The name is a puzzle, because the game is not thought to come from Poland at all: French tradition has it devised in Paris in the 1720s.

In international draughts, when several capturing sequences are possible, which one must a player take?

The one taking most pieces. Numbers alone count, so three men must be taken in preference to two kings, whereas American checkers lets a player choose whichever sequence he likes.

Which writer supplied the dedication for William Payne's 1756 guide to draughts, the first in English?

Samuel Johnson. He wrote the dedication for Payne, a London mathematician, and Payne's games and problems lived on when Sturges folded them into his own guide to the game in 1800.

France, Belgium, Switzerland and which other country founded the World Draughts Federation?

The Netherlands. Until then every world champion had been French or Dutch, and the federation, founded in 1947, has run the championship since 1948.

Which country produced Baba Sy, declared world draughts champion for 1963 only after his death?

Senegal. His 1963 title match with the Soviet champion was called off and never played; Sy died in a car accident in 1978, and he was declared champion only in 1986.

Chess saves a player with no legal move by stalemate, but what happens to a blocked checkers player?

They lose the game. Checkers has no stalemate: a player wins either by capturing every enemy piece or by leaving the opponent's pieces with no move to make.

About how many possible positions does a game of American checkers have?

About 500 billion billion. That is 5 followed by twenty zeros, which is why solving the game kept computers busy, on and off, for eighteen years; chess is vaster still.

Which mathematician and world chess champion invented a checkers game where captured pieces build towers?

Emanuel Lasker. His game, Lasca, went on sale in 1911 while he was still world champion; a jumped piece slides under its captor, and whoever owns the top piece commands the stack.

Which Edgar Allan Poe story opens by ranking draughts above 'the elaborate frivolity of chess' as a test of intellect?

The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Poe argues that chess rewards mere attention, while in draughts, with its simple moves, only sharper insight wins; he imagines an endgame of four kings to prove it.

Damath, a variant using numbered chips and maths principles, is popular in which country?

The Philippines. The name fuses dama, the local form of checkers, with maths; a Sorsogon schoolteacher, Jesus Huenda, devised it for his pupils, and the education department now promotes it nationwide.

Which Russian checkers variant lets you make your opponent's moves as well as your own?

Stavropol. On any turn a player may make a move for the opponent instead of moving a piece of his own; Bashni, by contrast, is the Russian game in which captured men are stacked under their captor.

Whose programmers' handbook helped Christopher Strachey get the first checkers program running?

Alan Turing. Strachey, a Harrow schoolmaster, had failed to get the program working on a London machine in 1951; with Turing's handbook he rewrote it for a bigger computer, where it soon played complete games.

On which computer, built by a British engineering firm, did Strachey's checkers program run in 1952?

Ferranti Mark 1. Strachey wrote the program for London's Pilot ACE, where it never ran properly; on the Manchester machine it drew the board on a cathode-ray tube, and it is often counted among the first video games.

Which now-famous phrase did IBM's Arthur Samuel put in the title of his 1959 paper on checkers?

Machine learning. 'Some Studies in Machine Learning Using the Game of Checkers' described a program that got better by playing against altered copies of itself and keeping whichever version won.

Where was the checkers program Chinook developed?

University of Alberta. The project began there in 1989, and once the program had finished far ahead of the best human players at the 1996 US championship it was retired from competition.

What jumped after IBM showed Arthur Samuel's checkers program on television in 1956?

IBM's share price. The company's president, Thomas Watson, had the program shown to shareholders and predicted a fifteen-point rise in the stock, and he got it.

How many pieces does each player start with in English draughts?

12. The twelve men fill the three rows nearest each player, which leaves only two empty rows between the armies when play begins.

Which two colours are official for tournament checkers pieces?

Red and white. The rule book still calls the two sides Black and White, whatever the colours on the table, and the official board is green and cream rather than black.

What happens in American checkers when a man's multi-jump reaches the far row?

Its move ends; it is crowned, and it may jump again only on its next turn. Russian draughts takes the opposite view: there the new king carries straight on capturing.

The 'White Doctor', the 'Ayrshire Lassie' and the 'Laird and Lady' are all names of what in checkers?

Openings. James Wyllie, the nineteenth-century champion known as the Herd Laddie, named the Ayrshire Lassie, and the White Doctor was the first opening to be fully solved by computer.

Which tournament rule in checkers has each game's first moves picked at random from an approved list?

Three-move restriction. The first three moves are chosen by ballot and each start is played twice, once from each side; free choice of first moves survives as a separate form with a world title of its own.

What does the abbreviation GAYP stand for in checkers?

Go As You Please. It means the players choose their own first moves, as in every championship before 1900, and one of the game's two world titles is still contested this way.

In checkers notation, what identifies each playable square?

A number. The playable squares are numbered in order from Black's side of the board, so a move is written as two numbers, such as 11-15, and a capture as 14x23.

Andrew Anderson, first world champion of English draughts in 1840, came from which country?

Scotland. Anderson beat his fellow Scot James Wyllie, 'the Herd Laddie', in four of their five matches and then retired, leaving Wyllie to hold the title on and off until 1894.

After Marion Tinsley resigned his title, which honorary title did the American Checker Federation grant him?

World Champion Emeritus. It honoured his long domination of the game, and it eased an awkward problem: any successor's title would mean little while Tinsley was alive and unbeaten in title matches.

What was the day job of Marion Tinsley, widely regarded as the greatest checkers player in history?

Mathematics professor. The two interests met early: hunting for a maths book in his public library as a boy, he came upon two books about checkers instead, and was hooked.

Marion Tinsley resigned his world checkers title because the game's federations refused to sanction what?

A match with a computer. Chinook had earned the challenge by finishing second to him at the 1990 US championship; with the title set aside, Tinsley played it in 1992 and won by four games to two.

Why did Marion Tinsley's 1994 title rematch end early?

He withdrew with cancer. Six games in, with the match level, Tinsley fell ill and gave it up; the diagnosis came a week later, and he died the next April, never beaten in a title match.

Solving checkers in 2007 meant cracking a game over a million times larger than which earlier solved game?

Connect Four. It had been solved in 1988 by two programmers working independently within a fortnight of each other; checkers then became the largest game ever solved.

What is the title of the Chinook team leader's book about the program?

One Jump Ahead. Published in 1997, the year after the program retired, it also retells how one win by an early program in 1962 fooled the world into thinking computers had already mastered checkers.

Despite its name, Chinese checkers was invented in 1892 as a star-shaped version of Halma in which country?

Germany. It first appeared as Stern-Halma, 'star Halma'; the Chinese name was an American sales idea of 1928, and since nothing is ever captured it is no kind of checkers either.