CHESMAYNE

673-dona                                                                                                                                                                         the years of my youth

 

                          

 

Draughts

Alongside traditional chess and played on the exact same board is the game of draughts or, checker’s.   The 12 mps to a side move diagonally and forward on the board on the same coloured XD (dark) cells from their initial starting positions (ISP) on ranks 1, 2 and 3.  On reaching the top ranks they undergo a metamorphosis becoming kinglets, this being indicated by placing one draught on top of a similar draught that has been captured or, by turning the mp to its obverse position, upon which the symbol for a crown or, the royal letter ‘K’ has been embossed onto its circular disk.  

            The disks are usually about 35mm in diameter, 6mm in depth and serrated on the circumference which allow the checker’s to be gripped between thumb and finger.  The 12 draught’s are placed on the XD (dark) cells of the board, the XL (light) cells being left vacant and unused during a contest.   These diminutive combatants are permitted to move forward one cell diagonally but when capturing are allowed to vault over a diagonally placed adversary.  This means that the draught moves two cells forward on the capturing manoeuvre, the captured MP/mp being removed from the playing area and kept in reserve for when a mp is promoted to a MP (kinglet).  All mps start off being of equal value and all can become of equal value once again on reaching rank 8 (8 x 8 board).  On being promoted the kinglets are allowed to move one cell diagonally in any direction and may capture in the same manner in which they existed prior to their new emergent state.   The contest is concluded when all the MPs/mps of either :A or :B have been captured.   There are two types of playing piece in the Chesmayne version of this game.  DR01 to DR12 (the initial set of mps which start the game) and K01 to K12 (the kinglets) to which the mps may be promoted.  The MPs/mps used in this game-tree (:gt) are referred to as a ‘draught’ in Europe and ‘checker’ on the American continent.  

          Draughts or Checkers can be played on an 8 x 8 board.   Each side has 12 pieces each and the dark (:A) side moves first.   In Chesmayne the draughts are individually numbered from D01 to D12 and the kinglets from K01 to K12.   The game appears to have been invented in the south of France during the 12^th century.   Polish draughts is played on a 10 x 10 board.  A version of draughts/checkers was played in Egypt, circa 1500 BC.   The accepted western version originated in Spain during the 16^th century.   In the 17^th century books about the game were published in France.   Dr Marion Tinsley was considered the greatest draught player who has ever lived, so much so, that when he lost a game it caused some consternation amongst acolytes.  The French call this game ‘jeu de dames’.   The Maid of the Hairy Arms (May Molloch): elf of folklore who will direct the master of the house how to play dominoes or draughts.  

Below: Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in the case of the leaping fish.  

 

American Checker Federation - The official site of the ACF - The American Checker Federation (ACF) is located in Petal, Mississippi.   The monumental ‘International Checker Hall Of Fame’ is truly a landmark and visiting site.   It was built in 1976 by ACF Secretary, Charles C. Walker.   In addition to supporting the game, there are other fine benefits when you become a member.   Your membership entitles you to play in any tournament in the USA.  Local and State fees may apply.  Your tournament play is sent in by the tournament director, and you receive an official ACF Rating which then determines the class you play in for future tournaments. 

The Alquerque Family

Draughts is a very ancient game indeed, the origins of which, like Chess, aren’t completely clear.   However, early forms of Alquerque, its venerable ancestor, have been found in Egypt dating at least as early as 600BC.   Alquerque boards can be seen carved into the stone slabs which form the roof of the great temple at Kurna, Egypt, which was built in 1400BC (of course, they might have been carved at any point since). The game of Alquerque was played like Draughts on a 5 x 5 point board with the pieces starting in a non-symmetrical pattern.   The game clearly had staying power - it is mentioned under the name of Quirkat in the Arabic work Kitab-al Aghani, the author of which died in 976 AD.   Quirkat was first brought to Europe by the Moors during their invasion of Spain. It was recorded as Alquerque (Spanish form of El-Quirkat) in the Alfonso X Manuscript which was written between 1251 - 1282 at the command of Alfonso X, King of Leon and Castile. The image shows a modern commercial version of the game owned by the author.

 

The Madagascan game of Fanorona is a descendant of Alquerque. It seems to have been invented around 1680 AD and is still played today.  Board shown is a modern German version from the author’s collection.

Sometime later, around 1100, possibly in the South of France, somebody decided to play Alquerque on a Chess board instead of the standard Alquerque board. The game was played with 12 pieces on each side and was called Fierges or Ferses at first although this changed to Dames later.    The game did not force a player to take enemy pieces when the opportunity presented itself.  

The compulsory rule forcing a player to take whenever possible was introduced in France around 1535, the resulting new game being called ‘Jeu Force’.    At this point the old game without huffing became known as ‘Le Jeu Plaisant De Dames’ or ‘Plaisant’ for short.   The first book written on the game was published in Valencia, Spain in 1547 and now resides in the Royal Library of Madrid.   ‘Jeu Force’ is the game played in England today under the name of Draughts and the game was taken to America and called Checkers.  The first book in English about it was written in 1756 by William Payne, a mathematician from London.   The board to the left was made around the turn of the century. It is of a common design being able to fold in half to form a box containing the pieces, when the board is stored.  An English Draughts board is on the outside and a Backgammon board is marqueted within.    From the author’s parent’s collection.

Draughts is known by different names around the world:

USA - Checkers
Spain and Italy - Dama
France - La Jeu de Dames
Poland - Warcaby
Germany - das Damenspiel

Most of the rest of Western Europe took to playing a different development of ‘Le Jeu Plaisant De Dames’ which appeared in Paris in 1727 and which is now the internationally recognised game of Polish Draughts or Continental Draughts. This game is superior in complexity to English draughts by virtue of the fact that it is played on a board ten squares by ten squares and that capturing moves have an extended scope.  It isn’t believed to have been invented in Poland at all and they apparently know it as ‘French Draughts’ there!  Polish Draughts was probably the name given in order to make it sound slightly different to West European ears in the same way as for Chinese Checkers and Russian Billiards.

Left: The Mongolian team International Draughts practicing while they wait at the 4^th Mind Sports Olympiad at Alexandra Palace, London, August, 2000. 

Some areas of South East Asia go one better and play on a board of twelve by twelve squares and 24 pieces each side.    The Canadian Draughts variant is also played upon a board this size. 

Above is a typical Sri Lankan board with the requisite 144 squares

And here are a couple of Sri Lankans playing on a home made board in Anuradhapura.   They have found some light and dark stones to use as pieces.

 Where to buy

Masters Traditional Games sell a Giant Draughts set for the garden and/or public entertainment.

Rules

Free rules for some variants of the game can be found at Masters Traditional Games.

Links

International Draughts An excellent page on the main game of today. 

In Holland, they play a game called ‘Frisian Draughts’ in which they capture both orthogonally and diagnonally.    Dambond Fres Spiel is in Dutch. 

 

After 18 years of practice, computers have finally conquered the game of draughts.

The result, described as a “truly significant advance in artificial intelligence”, is a draughts programme which cannot be beaten.

Draughts, known as checkers in America, is a popular board game with a history that dates back 5,000 years.  Disc-shaped counters move diagonally on a chequered board one square at a time and jump over an opponent’s pieces to capture them.  Counters that reach an opponent’s end of the board are crowned “kings” and can then move backwards as well as forwards. 

The game is essentially simple, but working out responses to every possible move meant sifting through 500 billion-billion (five followed by 20 zeroes) different play positions.

An average of 50 computers were run together every day for years at a time to complete the programme, known as Chinook.   At peak periods, more than 200 computers were in use.

Scientists led by Dr Jonathan Schaeffer, from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, sought the help of top-level draughts players to programme the computers.

Chinook now contains all the information needed to predict the best move to play in every situation of a game. Even making no mistakes, the best an opponent taking on the programme could achieve would be a draw.

Dr Schaeffer, whose team describe the programme in the journal Science, said: “I think we’ve raised the bar - and raised it quite a bit - in terms of what can be achieved in computer technology and artificial intelligence.  With Chinook, we’ve pushed the envelope about one million times more than anything that’s been done before.”

Dr Schaeffer, who chairs the University of Alberta’s Department of Computing Science, started the Chinook project in 1989, with a view to winning the human world checkers championship.

Chinook lost the championship match in 1992, but won two years later, becoming the first computer programme to win a human world championship in any game - a feat recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records.