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Archive 1

Canadian Checkers

I'm Canadian, and I've never heard of checkers played on a 12x12 grid with 30 pieces. In fact, I've got a checkers board beside me (in addition to Chess and Backgammon boards..I'm a board-game-aholic), and it's an 8x8 grid. Does anyone have any cites for this "Canadian checkers"? --72.141.60.5 00:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

"Draughts" vs "Checkers"

A Google search for "draughts game" turns up 2,060,000 results. A Google search for "checkers game" turns up 6,320,000 results.

Is there some reason why this article is biased towards the less popular British name? If Wikipedia's policy is to prioritize the oldest name over the most common name, then probably we should be using some even more ancient tongue.

The general rule is to write articles in the appropriate style of English to the theme of an article (such as American English for US-centric subjects and British English for articles concerning more British themes. Where no particular leaning applies (such as in this case) the general rule is to not change the style the article was started in and to have redirects in the alternative. One might add tthe point that while checkers generally refers to the game in the article, it can refer to other unrelated games such as Chinese checkers. In contrast, Draughts is a specific term for the game and its vairantes in this article. Dainamo 10:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Rules not complete

  • it does not say how a king can capture
  • it should say if capture is allowed backwards for non-kings
  • it should say how to do multiple captures (not just say its possible)

I would change it myself, but I don't know them!

I guess someone recently added these requests above, but there one more thing:

Variants not included

In some variants:

  • Kings don't need to stop immediately after the last captured piece, but anywhere in the uninterrupted diagonal of vacant tiles next to the last captured piece.
  • Capturing is NOT mandatory, you may choose not to capture by removing the piece that is about to make the jump; when you have 2 pieces in position to capture, only 1 must be removed, this does not counts has a move.

Usually only the second rule is included in the so called "Brazilian checkers" creating this unnamed variant, largely played by amateurs in Brazil.


What version was I playing?

I never played where jumping is mandatory, and I never played where kings can move like a bishop. Their only advantage was that they could move backwards and normal pieces couldn't.

I've played a version the same as English Draughts except that you started with two ranks of men (8 pieces) and you could jump your own men and kings. It made the game very different. In one version you could jump both your men and other men in a sequence and in the other version you couldn't. The people who played it called it checkers and didn't believe my rules (I play English Checkers/Draughts rules). I'm not sure what this version is called.

Interesting. When you jumped your own men, were you required to remove them from the board, like when you jumped the other men? Or do you leave your own men on the board, like "chinese checkers" ?

Simple beginner's question

The rules here (and everywhere else that I've looked) don't explicitly say what happens when a piece is on the side or edge of the board. When there is no opposite square, is the piece invulnerable to attack unless moved? MrZaius 199.8.170.224 17:26, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes. When a piece is on the side or edge, that piece is invulnerable to attack. However, it can be drawn out with a forced jump, or by blocking all the other pieces so that it is the only piece free to move.

merging "checkers" and "draughts"

I think the redirect to checkers is incorrect. Checkers is just one of the form of draughts. Andries 11:08, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Right now, the contents of the checkers and draughts entries are very much the same, and the intros for both entries claim that checkers and draughts are the same. If the games are the same, or if both are synonymous terms for a class of games, the entries should be consolidated, and one term should redirect to the other. If the games are different, or if one term refers to a class of games, while another is a specific type within that class, then they should be separate, with different content for each. How can this be resolved? My understanding is that American checkers is precisely the same game as English draughts, played under the same rules, but with different names. If this is the case, then having two separate entries for the game is like having separate entries for association football and soccer. Rohirok 02:35, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is not reasonable to maintain two separate entries for checkers and draughts, as both names are synonyms. I have seen it claimed in the checkers talk page that checkers is simply one variant of draughts, and so should have a separate page. This is simply not true. Checkers as most often played in the United States is identical to the English variant of draughts. The word "checkers" is also used in the United States as a general term that applies to other variations of the type, including International Checkers, also known as International Draughts. The fact that the checkers and draughts pages both contain virtually the same information also indicates general consensus that checkers and draughts are synonymous. Having two different articles leads the information added to one not being added to the other. Already this has started. The draughts page and the checkers page differ on who wrote the first checkers/draughts program.

To remedy this, I have consolidated the checkers and draughts pages. The checkers page will contain a redirect to the draughts page, as draughts is the term of longer standing, and I suspect is also more widely used. Though I am American, and prefer the name "checkers," I have never heard of any non-American preferring it. "Draughts" seems to be the more international term, and in any case precedes the American term. The checkers page will retain the redirects to other usages of the word "checkers." In these edits, none of the information has been lost. It has simply been consolidated for the sake of consistency, and for the sake of keeping in one place all information to be added at a future date. Rohirok 04:15, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Pages linking to the old checkers article will now redirect automatically to draughts. Someone typing in a search for checkers will also get the draughts page automatically. The top of the draughts article contains a link to a checkers disambiguation page (consisting of the disambiguation info already present in the old checkers page), for those looking for alternative usages of the word checkers. The Talk:Draughts page now contains all discussion from the old checkers page and the current draughts page that is pertinent to the board game. Discussion pertinent to other usages of the word checkers is in the checkers disambiguation talk page. I hope that this reconfiguration of the once separate checkers and draughts articles will ease the acquisition and retention of information on the subject. I also hope that the choice of "draughts" over "checkers" as the title of the game's article does not draw too much ire from my North American peers. Despite my own natural affection for the dialect in which I was raised, I believe the choice of the UK name is more proper in titling an objective encyclopedia article for all English speakers, since it the older and more international name. Rohirok 03:45, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

mathematical questions

I suspect the number of possibilities for checkers (number of potential moves per turn and total possible board positions) has been calculated; does anyone have that info?

variants

Some stuff I pulled off the main page:

The way I've played checkers in France:

  • board is 8x8
  • kings move as far as they wish on diagonals. They, and the game itself, are called "Dames"
  • Any piece may capture backwards, though only kings can move backwards without capture
  • A capture may be multiple: if on landing after a capture, another is possible for that same piece, it may be played as part of the same turn. There is no limit to the number of sequential captures.
  • a capture is not so much mandatory as punishable if missed. If a player does not capture in a move where it was possible, the piece that could have achieved this may be in turn seized from the board by the opponent, or "huffed" -- the French word is souffler, and players regularly say "Souffler, n'est pas jouer" to stress that they may take the opponent's piece and still make their own move. I do not believe this applies if several captures were possible and one of the possibilities is played, but a multiple capture must be played to its full extent.

-- Tarquin

Other defintions of Checkers, should be on sperate pages.


They are variants of the same game; I don't see why they shouldn't be all in one article. Certainly, my rough notes above should be refactored; I haven't done this as I'm not sure I remember all the rules correctly. I'll go ask on the French 'pedia. -- Tarquin

images

The Wikipedia:Requested pictures page says this page needs 'photos of empty board and setup board'. I had the computer draw a setup board and uploaded it to [[Image::checkers.jpg]]. I'll be happy to have it draw boards in similar styles for other positions. Dominus 23:10 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)

great :-) but is there anything you could do with colours? Looking at that picture really hurts my eyes :( -- Tarquin

What colors should it be? Green and white? Red and black? -- Dominus

Red and black do seem to be the most common -- V 23:38 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)

The pieces are not very circular - very bumpy around the edges. It would look better with some anti-aliasing. --Zundark 23:31 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)

Here's an alternative image, with anti-aliasing. The colours are probably wrong, but can easily be changed. --Zundark 21:17 Nov 29, 2002 (UTC)

The images that have actually been added to the page are the worst of all - the Black pieces are almost invisible on my computer (except in Netscape 4, where they appear white for some reason). --Zundark 09:17 Dec 21, 2002 (UTC)

The board in cream & black is much easier on the eyes. -- Tarquin

I've changed it now in accordance with the American Checker Federation colours as given on this page. (The diagram on the linked page is pretty garish, so I toned the colours down a bit, using the same board colours as in some of the Wikipedia chess diagrams.) I hope this is also easy on your eyes. --Zundark 17:05 Dec 21, 2002 (UTC)

Photo

I would still like to see a photo of a real game in this article. I'd take one myself, but I don't play. There are a few on Flickr, mostly of people obscuring a board, or with inappropriate licensing, or of boards improvised from household objects. I think this, however, could be a nice shot, with a couple of lighting/rotation adjustments — and it's CC-BY-2.0, which is acceptable at Commons. But is that a genuine game position? Is that reasonably representative equipment? I can't tell. —ptk✰fgs 09:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Same image with my suggested modifications. What do you folks think? —ptk✰fgs 10:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

splitting "draughts" from "English draughts"

Why does this page not have the international name as its title? Surely that would make more sense. -Tango

Probably. -- Tarquin

I think the article should be split, because currently it tries to be both an article about English draughts and also an article about draughts in general. Neither article should be called "checkers". --Zundark 13:16 Dec 21, 2002 (UTC)

Also, we need an article about international draughts, which is probably more important than English draughts nowadays. --Zundark 13:55 Dec 21, 2002 (UTC)


Yes, international draughts is more popular than english draughts world wide. It is not clear to which verion of draughts some remarks refer e.g. "solved in 2010". Andries 19:10, 27 May 2004 (UTC)


variants

just rewrote the borg and laska variant explanations to sound a bit smoother... I don't actually know anything about these, so I kept the facts as they were, and that means there are holes. the main ones are 1) what size board is used for borg, and 2) is laska spelled with a 'k' (as you might think from emanuel lasKer) or with a 'c' (as it says in the emanual lasker entry). takers? Eitch 03:36, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Must Jump Rule

The rule that says that you must jump if you can jump is not written correctly.

I'm not sure who wrote the above, but I was never taught that you had to jump. However, if you opted not to jump, your opponent could huff your piece off the board instead. Steve block 16:20, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi,

The huff was abolished from tournament play long ago, and is probably not worth including as no official tournament or significant website plays with the rule.

Also, to clarify for those who don't know this already, "checkers" refers specifically to the 8x8 English/American draughts game commonly used for the most significant GAYP and 3-move tournaments, in which jumps are required and there are no flying kings. No other game of the sort has "checkers" in its name except for anti-checkers, informally called "suicide checkers" or "suiy" by online players.

By the way, there is a page for a list of chess openings. There are probably far more named openings in checkers than there are in chess. Why not make a page about checkers openings, possibly listing them? We could include all the 3-move openings or simply the major GAYP openings and the "barred" or recently "unbarred" openings.

- Anthony P, checkers enthusiast

Proposed article at draughts after removing the redirect to checkers

"Draughts is a collection of board games that all the have rule that moves are made diagonally and that the pieces of the opponent can be captured by jumping over them.

Andries 12:57, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Game infobox

The chess article has a neat infobox on the right showing some quick information about the game of chess. I think this would be a useful thing for the draughts page. Does anybody have any objections to this?

--GilHamilton June 29, 2005 00:13 (UTC)

I've added an infobox to the page. I've filled it as best as I can from what experience I've had of English Draughts but I'm pretty sure it's correct. Smoore 500 10:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Removed stuff -- actually moved to English draughts

Lots of (for me) interesting stuff on English checkers has been removed (by Andries). In a way I can understand this, because this page probably should serve all variants of checkers and not contain overly much specific information on a single variant. However, in a way this is also sad because a lot of interesting things were sent into Wikivana with this edit. How could this be solved? Separate pages for different variants??

yes, I did not remove the information but moved it to English draughts. Andries 20:14, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
I just now stumbled on that article. I'm mostly interested in computers playing checkers. Strange place to bury it. For checkers variants with obstacles in the board, what makes for best play? For instance, on a 9x9 board, place an obstacle in the center of the board. Obstacles can't be moved, occupied, or captured, and can be represented by coins (or Euros). What's the best move for any given board?

Pronunciation

Am I correct that "draughts" is pronounced as though spelled "drafts"? Possibly the article should say something about that; American readers are likely to want to pronounce it "drawts". --Trovatore 23:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

As no one has responded and I'm reasonably sure this is correct, I've gone ahead and added the pronunciation note. Someone please let me know if I have this wrong. --Trovatore 00:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
It's correct. —Blotwell 09:06, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Samuel's program

Shouldn't the small section on Samuel's program be in the English variant page? In fact, there is more mention of Samuel's program there. Perhaps it would also deserve an entry of its own?

Checkers and Computers

Surely there is someone out there who can add an article on checkers being played by computers, and which computers hold the top ranks in checkers championships? Surely checkers has been extensively analyzed, or even over-analyzed by now? Who has a theoretical win for checkers played on variously sized boards? At least 30 years ago, I used to play checkers for money, and preferred playing on 9x9 boards because odd-sized boards always admitted to a win by one player or another. Of course, that was back when there weren't any computers around to upstage my efforts.

Computer draughts (more)

From the article:

In the period of 1952-1962 Arthur Samuels (IBM) wrote, for draughts, the first game-playing program. It was much weaker than is generally believed and had no chance against top human players.

On which I comment:

  1. The first sentence is badly written whatever it means to say. But if it means that it was the first implementation of an AI for a board game, this is inconsistent with the claim at Noughts and Crosses (also claiming the first AI in 1952).
  2. It's pointless to compare it with "what is generally believed", since as an encyclopædia reader I've never heard of the thing before and have no preconceptions from "general belief" about how weak it was. So just tell me directly whether it played well.
  3. An AI in the 1950s couldn't beat top human players? Is this a surprise? If that's the best upper bound you can give I would consider it impressively strong for the amount of computation available. —Blotwell 09:05, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

History?

How about the history of the game? Where it came from, where the names "checkers" and "draughts" came from, etc? --Awiseman 14:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Capturing scenario

Could these two sentences be clarified: "Notice that captured pieces are removed from the board only after capturing is finished. Thus sometimes the captured but not yet removed piece obliges a king to stop after capturing at a given field where he in turn will be captured by the adversary." I would like to see an example of this situation, as I don't fully understand it. nadav 05:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Russian shashki

Sentence "Also called shashki checkers or Russian shashki checkers" does not make sense. Word "shashki" means "checkers". As you would not say "Moskva Moskow", no one says "shashki checkers". Possibly take out the sentence (translations to other languages are not given) or rephrase to indicate meaning of word "shashki". g246020 01:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Kings capture rules unclear

I was not able to understand from the article whether king may continue moving forward after capturing a piece (to get out of harm's way), using Russian, or any other rules. g246020 01:25, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Rules not complete

  • it does not say how a king can capture
  • it should say if capture is allowed backwards for non-kings
  • it should say how to do multiple captures (not just say its possible)

I would change it myself, but I don't know them!

I guess someone recently added these requests above, but there one more thing:

Checkers has been solved?

I thought this game has been exhaustively solved for 8x8 at least. Any mention about that? --Sigmundur 09:37, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

That is correct. Using computers, scientists have explored all possible moves in the game (roughly 500 billion billion possible positions) and come to the conclusion that perfect play on both sides leads to a draw. This finding was published in the scientific journal Science (Schaeffer et al., Checkers Is Solved, Science, 14 September 2007;317(5844):1518-1522.). -- Pierre
Sorry, my comment above is inaccurate. Not every move in the game was actually explored. The method used was slightly more complex. -- Pierre

Why taken out?

Why was the following taken out? It seems very important to me:

In 2007, draughts was reported to be solved by a computer program. [1]

Bubba73 (talk), 14:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

It's already in the article, under History. 64.126.24.11 18:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Tom Geller. "Checkmate for checkers". nature.com. Retrieved 2007-07-19.

Flying Kings

When I was a kid, when we played checkers with "flying kings" it meant that the king could jump any other piece on that same diagonal, no matter how many spaces away it was. Was this just some variant made up by some bored kids, or is this also a variant of the flying kings rule? ~~Unknown Person

That is the Brazilian variant. Flying kings are also used in some other variations such as international draughts. 66.30.113.23 16:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Where is the Discussion ?

I am pretty sure yesterday I added some text to a discussion here, now it appears entirely blank.

GothicChessInventor 17:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. It was deleted yesterday, and I guess noone picked up on it. I've restored the page now. --Dreaded Walrus t c 17:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Checkers solved

Why didn't it make the lead that checkers is solved? (Posted by User:Gnixon sometime on 7/19.)

Here's a good article on it.
The game of checkers, as such, has not been solved—only the 8×8 variant is claimed to be solved. The majority of the world plays the more interesting 10×10 variant which remains unsolved.
—Herbee 16:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Really? I've always played it on the same board as chess. Gnixon 19:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC) ... which, I see from the lead of the article, is probably because I'm American. Gnixon 19:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The Seattle Times article is wrong. It contradicts the other sources by overstating the result to say that the program can choose the best move from any position. Only 21 of the 156 three move sequences have been declared solved. This is why the other reference to the solution calls it a weak solution, not a complete solution. I corrected the statement of the result. 66.30.113.23 16:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The currect description of the weak solution is wrong. They did not go through anything close to all positions. 66.30.113.23 02:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The LA Times article is wrong. Not all positions are in the search tree. Not all positions were solved. The paper in Science is available, linked to http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/publications/solving_checkers.html, so don't trust a reporter's interpretation instead. 66.30.113.23 02:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Draughts = Sport??

I have removed the [[Category:Sports]] insertion as I don't believe there is a consensus that this article is to be classified under "Sports". (Whether it is a sport or not is another consideration.) If there is disagreement, please discuss here. --Craw-daddy | T | 09:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Crowning - do you actually need a spare piece to do it?

A man is crowned with another man to become a king. In the unusual situation where there is no available man (not enough having been removed from the board) does this prevent or delay crowning, or can you just distinguish the king in another way?

In casual English play you just use something else; would be worth clarifying for other rulesets though. (Cf. Shogi, where pieces taken from the board are available to be added back, this being an important part of the game.) Lessthanideal (talk) 16:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The way I have played it - I've never won a game in my life - if there are no pieces of yours on the board, you put an opposing piece UNDER yours. Arthurvasey (talk) 09:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
What the guy above said. For you to get to the other side, the opponent will have had to lose pieces, it's best to put theirs under your "Kinged" piece. - An old version of Teabagging? ;) --Kurtle (talk) 17:12, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Thai Checkers

The rule for capture shown here ("A sequence must capture the maximum possible number of pieces, and the maximum possible number of kings from all such sequences.") is DEFINITELY INCORRECT. It is "Any sequence..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.57.173.251 (talk) 19:45, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

That is right. For example if I have two possible moves, one allowing me to capture a maximum of 4 stones, and another move (with the same stone in different direction, or following a different path, or using other of my stones) that allows me to capture maximum 3 stones, then I can freely chose which one to take. I can chose the sequence that let me capture 3 stones. Any sequence I would chose, I MUST do all possible captures (that is, I can not stop after I make 1 or 2 captures only, and if I took the sequence with 4 captures, then I can't stop after 3). The text in the table is confusing, suggesting that in the case I can capture 1 stone, but I have a different move leading to capture of 2 stones, it would be compulsory to chose the move that lead to capture 2 stones. This is incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.7.147.61 (talk) 09:18, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Expansions

As I am something of a polyglot, as well as a draughts player, I will add a few article stubs in re: regional variations of draughts, i.e. Czech draughts, Italian draughts, et al. Any objections? --Nmatavka (talk) 03:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Checkers

I'm Canadian, and I've never heard of checkers played on a 12x12 grid with 30 pieces. In fact, I've got a checkers board beside me (in addition to Chess and Backgammon boards..I'm a board-game-aholic), and it's an 8x8 grid. Does anyone have any cites for this "Canadian checkers"? --72.141.60.5 00:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm also Canadian, and had never heard of this version. According to the history in the Association québécoise des joueurs de dames, this version of the game was popular in French speaking communities within Ontario, Quebec, and New England and may predate the cession of New France to the English.
The 12x12 board are in the Netherlands always refered to as "Canadian". This doesn't mean Canadians always play the 12x12 version now. I think you should look to the naming the other way around. Basvb (talk) 09:32, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Unclear

I admit it's many years since I played the game, but doesn't the following need rewriting?

'Notice that captured pieces are removed from the board only after capturing is finished. Thus sometimes the captured but not yet removed piece obliges a king to stop after capturing at a given field where he in turn will be captured by the adversary.'

A 'captured but not yet removed piece obliges a king to stop...'? Rothorpe (talk) 23:36, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I've tried to rewrite it to clarify the general point that since you don't pick up the captured piece until the whole turn is done, the flying king can come back to a position where he is blocked from any further move (e.g. he could capture another piece, except that a piece he already captured is behind it.) However, since I play English, someone who actually uses this rule (or has a reference, even better :) should probably take a look. Other points that need clarifying:
  • can a flying king capture the same piece again if he wants to move over it?
  • can the flying king stop anywhere along the diagonal, or is "either move one square or go as far as possible"?
  • does this "don't pick up the pieces until the turn ends" rule apply in English draughts in some cases?
Lessthanideal (talk) 22:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I'll answer some of those for international draughts. The "don't pick up the pieces until the turn ends" is the characteristic of the combination type called "Coup Turc". For question 1: you can't go twice over the same piece during one move. question 2: In international draughts the king can stop anywhere behind the piece (as long as the positions are free). Basvb (talk) 09:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

How to Win

It is perplexing that the rules of the standard game say nothing about the victory condition or conditions. How do you win? One assumes that it's the player with the only remaining piece or pieces on the board, but that's not stated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Draco von Faust (talk • contribs) 13:52, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Last sentence of first paragraph in General rules section: "In all variants, the player who has no pieces remaining or cannot move owing to being blocked loses the game, unless otherwise stated." Ihardlythinkso (talk) 14:18, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. I had searched for the word "win" and had found nothing relevant, hence my question. That might suggest an improvement for a skilled editor. Draco von Faust (talk) 15:57, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, and it's kind of odd too, isn't it, that the objective of a game like Draughts, which has brought joy to millions, is expressed in negative terms (i.e. losing conditions). IBM had a policy (years ago, dunno anymore) their computer manual texts had to express things in positive terms -- not negative. (Don't know why; I'm fathoming because to continually read negative stuff is ... tiring and slightly depressing. Maybe.) Anyway, those IBMers were smart; we can learn from that. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 17:49, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

"Draughts" vs "Checkers"

A Google search for "draughts game" turns up 2,060,000 results. A Google search for "checkers game" turns up 6,320,000 results.

Is there some reason why this article is biased towards the less popular British name? If Wikipedia's policy is to prioritize the oldest name over the most common name, then probably we should be using some even more ancient tongue.

The general rule is to write articles in the appropriate style of English to the theme of an article (such as American English for US-centric subjects and British English for articles concerning more British themes. Where no particular leaning applies (such as in this case) the general rule is to not change the style the article was started in and to have redirects in the alternative. One might add tthe point that while checkers generally refers to the game in the article, it can refer to other unrelated games such as Chinese checkers. In contrast, Draughts is a specific term for the game and its vairantes in this article. Dainamo 10:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Many more poeple call it checkers than call it draughts. The title "Draughts" only serves to confuse people who want to learn about checkers. (PS- show some American pride! U-S-A! U-S-A!) 12va34 19:59, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Shoot, I meant that we should call it checkers. My bad. Anyways, after using Google Trends and Google, I found that searches for checkers far outnumber those for draughts, even in the United Kingdom (for the most part) and that there are a little above 1 million hits for draughts and a little under 10 million for checkers. Also, my Firefox spellchecker doesn't seem to recognize draughts either (if that counts for anything). --76.188.148.173 11:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
My British English Firefox spellchecker doesn't recognise "spellchecker", or "Firefox", or "center", or "Wikipedia". Doesn't mean that those words should be removed/changed. As for the google test, we are sometimes hesitant about using that, as Google results (and indeed the internet itself) is often very American-centred. On top of that, a word like "Checkers" can be very ambiguous, so any search for checkers will bring up results for all of those, while a search for draughts will only be results for this game. The same state of affairs goes for check over cheque. Our article is at cheque. Likewise, Aluminum has more results than Aluminium, but Aluminum is pretty much exclusively in American usage, and this is an English language encyclopedia, so we go with the most common usage in the English speaking world, which is Aluminium. --Dreaded Walrus t c 03:26, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


The term "checker" could also be "one who checks" and there are many instances where google will return a hit for "checkers" that is not related to the game.
GothicChessInventor 19:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
It could be a hockey player, or Richard Nixon's infamous dog. WHPratt (talk) 16:46, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

So how does the ambiguity of the term in relation to searching decide whether it should be checkers/draughts. Nobody's going to be thrown off if they get a reply for checker's restaurant Also if how the article was written in originally was flawed, then it should be changed not just left the same. The issue is that in this one language they're are two terms that see very widespread use in their respective areas, the US and Britain. I'm not really sure which should be used, but as far as I can tell the current use of draughts has little basis, checkers at least appears to be more popular; which still seems like a somewhat poor basis for encyclo use. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.230.55.25 (talk • contribs).

Hi. Do not edit other people's comments, as you did here. Remember that saying "checkers appears to be more popular" is based, probably, on US culture. In the UK, "draughts" is more popular. In the US, "checkers" is more popular. --Dreaded Walrus t c 01:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think a good question is, which term is better known. Most of my brittish friends know it by draughts AND/OR checkers. Few americans would recognize draughts as the name of this game.--71.97.131.193 01:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

But that is flawed logic. If British people know what the American name for something is, but the reverse doesn't apply, that just means that British people have been exposed to more US culture than Americans have to British culture. Most British people know that when an American says football, they mean American football, and when they say soccer, they mean what we here in the UK would call football. Does that mean that we should move American football to football, and football (soccer) to soccer? Of course not. --Dreaded Walrus t c 01:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Its not flawed logic if your goal is being accessible to the greatest number of people. If most Americans (including this one who just got to the page through random article) only know the game as checkers and most British know the game as both draughts and checkers, checkers is obviously more accessible. I don't really think it matters, though, since the redirect works fine. Atropos 02:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Like a troll under the bridge, the dreaded walrus jumps out and clubs with nationalism any idea that is not strictly British. Whether adding extra u's or subbing s's for z's as in colourise, the Union Jack shall prevail. Unfortunately, that unilateralist view ended a century ago when Noah Webster authored a dictionary with "cookie" and "wigwam" in it. As for today, I just spent an extra 10 minutes looking for "checkers" all over the web because of this silly linguistic troll. I skipped the Wiki entry because I mentally thought British Draughts was about British Bitters (and, yes, draft is spelled (spelt) "draught" in the UK and yes, bitters is beer). Eventually, I came back and got the information I needed, but only after a complete waste of time and effort reading far less authoritative articles than this Wiki entry. For goodness sakes, this is a great and useful article, don't cripple it by not at least having a most common word for the subject in the heading. Regarding whose language is better, please, let it go. N0w8st8s (talk) 10:14, 17 March 2013 (UTC)n0w8wt8s

it's 'bitter' for beer, 'bitters' would be, well, Bitters... and to call this disagreement a troll is silly. [User:Dainamo|Dainamo]'s answer above pretty much covers how this has been dealt with across WP. So we have the eng-us spelling of airplane but, in this case, the eng-uk for this game.

God considers the term draughts to apply to the entire family of games, while checkers applies to eight-by-eight English draughts. --Nmatavka (talk) 04:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

and it is well established that He is an Englishman...

What is a "long-range king"?

This article includes "long-range kings" and "no long-range kings" without explaining what a "long-range king" is. I cannot find any explanation of this anywhere on Wikipedia. This should be added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.116.113.66 (talk) 17:06, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Good point. "Long-range kings" was used as synonym for "flying kings". The latter is defined in the article and occurs in the draughts literature (perhaps "long-range" does too but am not so sure), so I simplified the text to use the one term instead of two.  Done Ihardlythinkso (talk) 00:41, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Draughts

Is it true that to play this game in its original incarnation, a given player must remove his bowler hat, place the open side of said hat against his buttocks, and break wind thrice for each of his 'men' captured? If so (i.e., it's not just an urban legend or such rot), I believe this information should be added to the article.

I too have heard this rumour; I believe that it's part of American rules, dating back to the 1870s; contrary to popular belief it was the bowler, and not the 'cowboy hat', that was the most popular in the American West, prompting Lucius Beebe to call it "the hat wut done killed all dem injuns". We are all, of course, familiar with the flatulence problems of that time and place, thanks in no small part to the scholarly works of Mel Brooks, so we shouldn't find it at all surprising if our beloved colonial friends were to have formalised flatulence in their games of 'Chequers', or 'Squarey-Board-Stompy-Disk', or whatever it is that they call it over there! — Preceding unsigned comment added by InternationalistChap (talk • contribs) 15:36, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

English article, English language

I don't care where the game originated, I don't care where it's currently played. The problem is that there is some other language being displayed on an English language wiki article. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Probl%C3%A8me_Jeu_de_dames_SR.gif Why was this ever allowed to be used on the English wiki article? ~AeSix 72.186.196.244 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:32, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation

That given is southern English. In the north it has a short a. Peter jackson (talk) 12:03, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

This is true of the a before an unvoiced fricative, like f. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.8.103 (talk) 11:49, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
The accepted and standard pronunciation in British English uses a long a. There may be a myriad of dialectal forms, but educated people will veer towards the standard English dialect and RP. 78.146.142.93 (talk) 23:39, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Another variant

I played as a child was with an 8X8 board, players using 8 pieces, but each player moving only on the colored squares corresponding to his pieces' color. That is, the players' pieces were never on the same color squares as each other. Jumps were either straight forward or sideways, moves were forward diagonal. I don't remember if kings were awarded or if piece reaching the forward edge just hung there. I also seem to recall (of this, I'm not certain) that in some games, kings could ONLY move 'backwards' (towards the back edge), again with diagonal moves only. I'd been playing for years before I encountered the "must jump" rule.174.130.70.61 (talk) 03:32, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Russian

I find it not well organized to describe Russian Column checkers with this "Rules of moves of draughts and kings correspond to the rules of Russian draughts" before any mention of Russian checkers. Kdammers (talk) 02:51, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 20 December 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Checkers, pending history merge. There is a persuasive enough consensus to move it to the British English variation. I take the point by 73.xxx over "chequers" vs. "checkers" under advisement, but as the page at Chequers is currently taken by an article about the PM's country mansion, and "checkers" is also an acceptable (but minority) spelling in the UK, I'm choosing that over a disambiguated name, although there is no prejudice towards an RM on that spelling. Sceptre (talk) 20:12, 28 December 2021 (UTC)


Draughts → Checkers – Per WP:RETAIN. This article was originally created under the title "Checkers" on June 15, 2001‎ where it remained until it was manually moved to "Draughts" on December 28, 2004 without discussion with a cut and paste move. This is a clear violation of WP:RETAIN which clearly says to "use the variety found in the first post-stub revision", which in this case is "checkers". There is no time limit on the enforcement of WP:RETAIN, and there is precedent for enforcing WP:RETAIN after many years on an article title requested move. See Talk:Yogurt/Archive_6#Move_page_to_yogurt. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:41, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

  • Support per nom, per WP:RETAIN. EDIT: Additionally, with data from User:Netoholic, it's clear that "checkers" is more common, and that even in British English sources "checkers" is just as popular as "draughts". Paintspot Infez (talk) 08:44, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose While is so necessary to reverted back to original title prior to 2004, draught is more popular word in English-speakers other than the US, which seems too US-centric. We should at least avoid a word that not easily understand to some people (WP:WORLDVIEW). Doesn't "draughts" actually plural form of "draught"? If yes, the article's page move would be necessary. 125.167.56.108 (talk) 12:26, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose in principle per WP:TITLECHANGES: If an article title has been stable for a long time,[9] and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. We do not enforce WP:RETAIN violations from 2004. Actually, User:Rohirok seems to have merged the articles and explained the rationale here, so it was not entirely "without discussion". No such user (talk) 12:59, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    I restored the talkpage archives to /Archive 1. No such user (talk) 13:08, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    There is no time limit on the enforcement of WP:RETAIN. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:30, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    I am not sure what you are saying with references to WP:RETAIN Rreagan007. I read that as keep what is here now, not keep what once was. —¿philoserf? (talk) 19:37, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    It is the first stable version of an article that controls what title it should have and what version of English it should use. "Checkers" was the first stable title of the article. The title was established and stable at "Checkers" for years, thus it should not have been moved from that title. The fact that it was moved without discussion and by a copy/paste job without properly being moved with the article history intact in clear violation of proper Wikipedia procedures is all the more reason that it must be moved back to its original stable title. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:48, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    hmm? i gotta re-read that. —¿philoserf? (talk) 19:53, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    Read it again. While the change from Checkers to Draughts was a WP:RETAIN violation, a change now, without consensus, would also be a violation of that same item.
    Thus we seek seek consensus on the name. I cannot find a reading of WP:RETAIN that is justification for a return to what once was. That shipped sailed, this is the name that carries the weight of the policy now.
    I recommend advocates of Checkers find a stronger position. —¿philoserf? (talk) 19:59, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    I'm glad that you admit that the previous move to the current title was a WP:RETAIN violation. And WP:RETAIN clearly says to "use the variety found in the first post-stub revision", which in this case is "checkers". And there is precedent for enforcing WP:RETAIN after many years on an article title requested move. See Talk:Yogurt/Archive_6#Move_page_to_yogurt. Rreagan007 (talk) 22:52, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    That is still a selective reading of the policy. Perhaps I am parsing the ideas incorrectly, perhaps you are. I will no longer participate in the topic of how WP:RETAIN applies here. Let us move on to other reasons to prefer Checkers over Draughts, please. —¿philoserf? (talk) 23:46, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose—Each title will have advocates. No need to pick a winner now. An undiscussed move nearly two decades ago doesn’t matter today. This is the standard location today and should remain so without very, very good reason. —¿philoserf? (talk) 14:03, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
WP:RETAIN is the very, very good reason. There is no time limit on its enforcement. The previous move was done in clear violation of standard Wikipedia practices and was therefore illegitimate. It must not be allowed to stand. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:32, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
There is precedent at Wikipedia (i.e. Yogurt, see Talk:Yogurt/Archive 6#Move page to yogurt) for the winner to be the title used for the first version of the article which is not a stub. This article was already not a stub when it still had the title "checkers", before it was moved to "draughts". 73.168.5.183 (talk) 05:49, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Variants not included

In some variants:

  • Kings don't need to stop immediately after the last captured piece, but anywhere in the uninterrupted diagonal of vacant tiles next to the last captured piece.
  • Capturing is NOT mandatory, you may choose not to capture by removing the piece that is about to make the jump; when you have 2 pieces in position to capture, only 1 must be removed, this does not count as a move.

I've always played the rule where you are forced to jump - if you don't, the opponent can "huff" you - take your piece off the board. Arthurvasey (talk) 09:28, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Usually only the second rule is included in the so called "Brazilian checkers" creating this unnamed variant, largely played by amateurs in Brazil. 66.30.113.23 16:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I've witnessed a variation in which captures were not compulsory. A player would pass up a jump to make a strategic move. That's the way that everybody played it at one place that I worked, and they seemed to consider it standard practice. This version must have been playable, yet I've never seen it referenced anywhere! WHPratt (talk) 16:38, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I continue to be amazed that there is no version described in which capturing is not compulsory and in which there is no penalty for not doing so. I witnessed the version I described above being played while working in the mail room of an office building in Chicago circa 1970. As many of my fellow workers were immigrants -- most from Latin America, but a few from Germany, Italy and Poland -- I assumed that it was a Spanish or European version. By the way, it was the 8x8 board with 12 pieces to a side. WHPratt (talk) 19:44, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Still no one else is aware of the version I described? Fascinating. WHPratt (talk) 18:17, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Arthurvasey (talk) 09:28, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I've come across variations on draughts, as I've always called it - we had a compendium of games that came in a cube - it had six sides on it, one of which was a checkered board for playing chess and draughts on.

With draughts, apart from the traditional version, there were the following variations:

Dammspiel - that's what the manual called it - I think it's also called Damenspiel - you set them up a bit like chess, but they were placed one square forward (hard to explain) - the pieces moved almost identical to regular draughts - diagonally, one square - I think the kings could move multiple squares - a bit like the "Flying Kings" rule people have mentioned - except that you stop short of capturing - my memory is hazy on the issue.

Turkish Checkers - similar set-up to Dammspiel/Damenspiel - it looks a bit like chess with draughts pieces, the set-up being on the same squares you'd use for draughts - pieces move one square forwards, and, if I remember rightly, capture diagonally, like standard draughts - the kings, I believe, move like rooks in chess and jump only once in a straight line - again, my memory is hazy regarding the rules.

One game not listed in the manual was a game known by one of three names - Arrow Draughts, Dagger Draughts or Kings.

Played similar to standard draughts - you play it corner-to-corner and set the pieces up as kings in the shape of an arrow or dagger - you then play it like regular draughts. (actually - in my variation of "Dagger" it's not quite like regular draughts. In order to take an opponent's piece you must first jump over one of your own pieces)

I have played draughts with at least three opponents - a relative, somebody at school and somebody I once shared a house with - and they were convinced that a single man can't take a king. Apparently, according to this page, that's the rules in Italian draughts.

(Copied from Talk:English draughts § Mandatory jumps due to relevancy) I haven't played checkers in at least 20 years, and was surprised when today I'm playing against my computer, and it won't let me choose not to jump. The game simply waits on my turn indefinitely, and any other move I wish to make results in a "You MUST Jump" dialog box. Until today, I have never heard of jumping being mandatory. Sadly, this option isn't in the game's menu, and huffing as described in § Rule variations doesn't quite describe the option of not jumping. Perhaps more detail in the article should be given to this situation.
Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 21:29, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
There seem to be three basic versions:
  • Must capture – not capturing when a capture is available is an illegal move.
  • Huff – not capturing when a capture is available results in forfeiture of the piece that should have captured.
  • Free capture – players have a free choice of whether to capture or not, and there is no penalty for not capturing.
When I was at school, people seemingly always played either huff or free capture. Sometimes there were disagreements over which rule we were playing, but nobody seemed to play the must capture rule. OTOH, nearly every computer implementation of draughts I've seen plays only the must capture rule. It seems it's the standard rule, and the only one used in competitive play if the info on Huff (board games) is to go by, whereas the other two are variants invented for casual play. Or maybe, if the info on English draughts is to go by, huffing used to be used in competitive play but is not used nowadays and no longer exists in the official rules. But I'm sure both huff and free capture are still frequently played in many casual social circles. — Smjg (talk) 22:06, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

One minute game?

Does the game really only take one minute to complete? You have to take all the opponents pieces, that is 20 pieces, so at least 60 moves. Can the game really be played with less than one second per move? I doubt even a robotic arm could move pieces that quick. JayKeaton 16:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Even with an 8x8 board and 8 pieces on each team, there will be 4+ moves from either player that don't involve taking + 8 moves that do + 7 moves from the losing player before he loses. So this one minute estimation suggests there will be at least one move every three seconds. That's for an unrealistically short game with rules that are not commonly used and with the losing player trying to lose. I would chage the estimated figure but that would be original research so I've deleted it.--81.131.16.144 21:16, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Playing the game (international 10x10) in 1 minute is possible, althought performance suffers very bad from that. For a 1 minute game (each player 1 min) you should image people mainly focussing on making fast moves (thus making lots of errors) and throwing the pieces away (gently putting them down takes more time). It is possible, but something like 5 or 10 minutes is more common. (And when you go to play competitions etc. 2 hours each, or 80 minutes + 1 minute/move are the standards). Basvb (talk) 09:40, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
the actual joke is; club of rome predicted problems, unless preacting — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.78.166.176 (talk) 10:31, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

My Notes on 8x8 Draughts (American Checkers)

Hello everyone, I am Ed Trice and I did help in some very small way with checkers being solved. You can see from http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/thankyou/ that I helped to verify the correctness of the endgame databases. Anyway, I did some cleanup regarding some inaccurate statements that were posted in the Wikipedia article. While there are 500,995,484,682,338,672,639 unique checkers positions, these were not all "solved" in order to solve the game of checkers. About 39 trillion positions were "solved" meaning for any of them, their status as being won, lost, or drawn is known. With a massive forward search, these precomputed endgames cannot be avoided. Therefore, as the "front end" hit the "back end" the game was solved.

Also, there was a note about Blondie24 being in there. That really did not belong. I played that program in 1996, and I caputured all of its pieces by move 30. That's hard to do when you consider that 12 moves are jumps to take the pieces off the board! I saw no reason to mention an extremely weak program in the same paragraph as the one that has solved the game. There are much stronger programs that deserve mention.

With my regards,

GothicChessInventor 19:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Ed, did you ever try a checkers variation on one of those 10 x 8 chessboards that you must have all over the place? Does a non-square playing field change the game appreciably? WHPratt (talk) 19:55, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Still curious. Are there any variations with a non-square board? WHPratt (talk) 05:00, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

merging "checkers" and "draughts"

I think the redirect to check

Yeah, this is a duplice it seems. -Koppapa (talk) 05:39, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Citation Error

The reference for citation 11 [Board and Table Game Antiques] was slightly wrong, I haven't edited a wiki for over a decade and I'm out of my depth and don't want to break anything. I've just swapped out the entire citation for a new version, I hope that's the right thing to do because I couldn't figure out how to edit the reference itself.

The reference is for page 33 but the book is only 32 pages long. I found the correct reference on page 13 so that's probably just a typo. The reference also lists Osprey as the publisher which was probably broadly true at the time the citation was added as Shire was acquired by Osprey but now they are both part of Bloomsbury. I don't know if Wikipedia has a style guide for this sort of thing but I would tend to list the original publisher as listed on the book cover rather than the parent company to avoid confusion.

Teletran (talk) 04:42, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

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