Checkers
Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (/drɑːfts, dræfts/; 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. 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".
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 minute |
| 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 | 4+ |
| Skills | Strategy, tactics |
| Synonyms |
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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 and Turkish draughts, both on an 8x8 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 Singaporean/Malaysian 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 would result in a draw.