Checkers
Starting position for American checkers on an 8×8 checkerboard; Black (red) moves first. | |
| Years active | at least 5,000 |
|---|---|
| Genres |
|
| Players | 2 |
| Setup time | < 1 min |
| Playing time | Casual games usually last 10 to 30 minutes; tournament games last anywhere from about 60 minutes to 3 hours or more. |
| Chance | None |
| Age range | 6+ |
| Skills | Strategy, tactics |
| Synonyms |
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Checkers[note 1] (North American English), also known as draughts (/drɑːfts, -æ-/; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve forward movements of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers is developed from alquerque.[1] The term "checkers" derives from the checkered board which the game is played on, whereas "draughts" derives from the verb "to draw" or "to move".[2]
The most popular forms of checkers in Anglophone countries are American checkers (also called English draughts), which is played on an 8×8 checkerboard; Russian draughts, Turkish draughts and Armenian draughts, all of them on an 8×8 board; and international draughts, played on a 10×10 board – with the latter widely played in many countries worldwide. There are many other variants played on 8×8 boards. Canadian checkers and Malaysian/Singaporean checkers (also locally known as dam) are played on a 12×12 board.
American checkers was weakly solved in 2007 by a team of Canadian computer scientists led by Jonathan Schaeffer. From the standard starting position, perfect play by each side will result in a draw.
Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).
- ^ "Draughts / Checkers and the Alquerque Family". TradGames. James Masters. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
- ^ Strutt, Joseph (1801). The sports and pastimes of the people of England. London. p. 255.