Checkers
Tech snobs think it’s too old-fashioned. Chess snobs think it’s too
unsophisticated. Age snobs think it’s either for really old people or
really young, and no one in between. But what other game has moves like
the Goose Walk, Wyllie's Switcher Winder, the Boomerang, and best of
all, the awful 350-year-old Canalejas Cannonball, with which you can
squash your opponent in just five brisk moves.
At an ancient temple in Thebes, there are inscriptions that portray
King Ramses III having a go at an early checkers-type board, which
dates the game several thousand years B.C. There is also ancient
pottery that shows Greek warriors Achilles and Ajax, they of Trojan War
fame, doing the just same. And those are just the noteworthy early
showings—checkered boards have been spotted throughout history. The
only problem with chronicling the game of Checkers is that the same
type of board was also used for chess, backgammon and morris, all of
which are also very old games with very long histories. There were
checkered boards in medieval times, which all classes of people
apparently played on. And we know from old documents and wills dating
back six and seven hundred years that gaming flatboards, both folding
and reversible, were considered very valuable property.
Checkers, which is called draughts (pronounced “drafts”) in the
U.K., has also been known as Alquerque, as Fierges or Ferses, and as
Dames—depending on which century and which country it was found in. But
in all of these incarnations, there were twelve movable pieces on each
side of the board, and a player didn’t have to take enemy pieces when
he jumped over them. That rule came about in mid-15th century France,
where the game was called Jeu Force, and it sticks today.
By the 17th century, Checkers as we know it had spread across
Western Europe. It was played on boards with 32, 64, 100 and 144
spaces—the 64-cell board being probably the most common. With the
bigger boards (which were hung on walls when they weren’t being played
on), the pieces were painted red and black, though in the game’s many
versions, they have also appeared in white and black. Nowadays, serious
Checkers players use red and white playing pieces on green and yellow
checkerboards. And don’t wriggle your nose—that’s the palette the
American Checker Federation deems official.
The rules to modern Checkers are deceptively simple: Each player
lines his twelve pieces up on the black squares (it’s just better
contrast that way) closest to him. A player takes his turn by moving
one of his pieces diagonally forward, and after the initial moves, when
an opponent’s pieces occupy those adjacent spots, the player must
“jump” over the opponent’s piece, collect it for himself (deemed a
“capture”), and land in the vacant spot just ahead of the square where
the captured piece was.
It sounds much worse than it is. Captures are compulsory, but if
there are more than one capture choices, a player can choose whichever
best fits his needs—but once he begins a capturing move, he must
continue on that move’s path until all his opponent’s capture-able
pieces have been picked up. When the pieces reach any of the squares in
the row opposite to them, they are “crowned,” and whereas an uncrowned
man may only move forward, the crowned may move backwards and forwards.
A game is won when a player captures all of his opponent’s men, or
renders them unable to move. But a draw can result too—which is what
often happens when two strong players compete—and this is when neither
player can force a win.
Like screwball comedian Jerry Lewis, Checkers is inexplicably
popular in France. And there, like much of Europe, the 100-square
board, which has its own set of rules and obviously, far more intricate
move possibilities, reigns supreme. The U.S. fancies the 64-squarer,
Canada the 144-squarer. Some argue that this is why Checkers was never
as popular as Chess—because it’s not the same game the world over. But
if games could talk, Checkers would probably tell us that actually, its
lesser status is just fine. It never did take itself as seriously as
those other checkered board games did, and thank goodness for that.
Game snobs are like food snobs—you just don’t want them at your party.
