Checkers
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Checkers is the name of several different board games. All of these games are similar. In every kind of checkers, the other player's pieces can be taken by being "jumped" over.
"Checkers" is the American name. In British English, these games are called "draughts."
[edit] History
Checkers comes from a very old game called Alquerque. Alquerque was played on a different kind of board. Around the 12th century, a French person used a chess board to play Alquerque. This was the first checkers game. Later, maybe in 1535, a new rule was added: when a player can jump, he must jump. This made the game more interesting.
[edit] Rules
In most games of checkers, there are two players. The players are at opposite ends of the board. One player has dark pieces, and one player has light pieces. They take turns moving their pieces. Players move their pieces diagonally from one square to another square. When a player jumps over their opponent's (the other player's) piece, he takes that piece.
[edit] English checkers
Most English-speaking people call English checkers "checkers." English checkers is played on an 8x8 chess board. Only the dark squares are used (the light squares are never used). For that reason, good players play differently in the left and right corners.
- Pieces The pieces are flat and round. They are usually colored red and white. For this reason, the darker pieces are always called "Red" and the lighter pieces are always called "White." Some checkers sets have red and black pieces. Then the red pieces are called "White" and the black pieces "Red." There are two kinds of pieces: plain pieces and "kings". A king is made by putting two plain pieces on top of each other.
- Starting Position Each player starts with 12 pieces on the three rows closest to their own side. The row closest to each player is called the "King Row". The Red side moves first.
- How to Move A player can move in two ways. A piece can be moved forward, diagonally, to the next dark square. But if one player's piece, the other player's piece, and an empty square are lined up, then the first player can "jump" the other player's piece. In this case, the first player jumps over the other player's piece onto the empty square and takes the other player's piece off the board. A player can use one piece to jump many times in one turn. Sometimes a player can jump in different ways. Then he can choose how to jump.
- Kings If a player's piece moves into the King Row on the other player's side, it becomes a king. It can move forward and backward. (Regular pieces can only move forward.) A king cannot jump out of the King Row until the next turn.
- How the Game Ends The first player who cannot move is the loser. So if a player loses all of his pieces, he loses the game. And if he cannot move, he loses (even if he has pieces). A player may also resign (choose to lose). If nobody can lose, the game is a draw.
