Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Checkers |
CheckersNoun1. A checkerboard game for two players who each have 12 pieces; the object is to jump over and so capture the opponent's pieces. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "checkers" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
Note: Checkers \Check"ers\ (ch[e^]k"[~e]rz), noun. plural [See Checher, verb]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of playing checkers, you will be involved in difficulties of a serious character, and strange people will come into your life, working you harm. To dream that you win the game, you will succeed in some doubtful enterprise. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Industry | Bricks or shapes set in such a way that the hot gases can pass between them; the filling of a regenerator chamber. Source: European Union. (references) |
Metallurgy | Filling of refractory brickwork in a hot-blast stove. designed to give a high degree of heat transfer. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Checkers (or draughts) a group of board games which involve the "jumping" of enemy pieces.
History
The game of draughts is thought to have originated in around 1100 AD, probably is southern France. It is thought the inventor created this board game by using a Chessboard, with the rules of Alquerque.
The pieces were originally called "ferses", the name that was given to chess queens at the time, and the draught ferses moved in the same way as the queen did in chess. Note however at this time, the queen was able only to move one square per turn. The one new move this game introduced was the ability to jump over opponent's pieces and take them. At this time the game was known as "Fierges".
In Philip Mouskat's "Chronique" (1243) is a reference to the use of "Kings" suggesting that the ability to promote a piece existed at this time.
When in Chess "ferses" were renamed to "Dame", the same occurred in Draughts, the games name also changed to "Dames". While it is thought that the original Fierges had a compulsory capture rule, there is no evidence that this rule existed in Dames. This rule was however reintroduced in France in the year 1535. Modern play includes this rule.
The name "Checkers" originated with European settlers in the USA.
Rules
English Checkers (draughts) is played on an 8x8 chessboard, but only uses the dark squares.
The rules are:
In tournament checkers, a variation called three-move restriction is preferred. The first three moves are drawn at random from a set of accepted openings. Two games are played with the chosen opening, each player having a turn at either side. This tends to reduce the number of draws and can make for more exciting matches. Three-move restriction has been played in the United States championship since 1934. A two-move restriction was used from 1900 until 1934 in the United States, and in Great Britain until the 1950s. Before 1900, championships were played without restriction: this style is called go-as-you-please.
- Each player starts with 12 pieces on the three rows closest to himself. (See diagram above.)
- Each turn, a player can move one of his pieces diagonally forward or jump diagonally forward over a series of enemy pieces, which are then removed from the board. Captures are mandatory, however, if different captures are possible, any of them can be chosen.
- Multiple captures are possible, and if started must be completed.
- When a piece reaches the opposite side, it becomes a king with the ability to move and jump diagonally backwards as well as forwards. A king is represented by two pieces of the same colour, one on top of the other.
- A player who cannot make a move loses.
Computer Players
The first computer player of checkers was written by Arthur Samuel, a researcher from IBM. Other than it being one of the most complicated game playing programs written at the time, it is also well known for being one of the first adaptive programs. It learned from its opponents and adjusted its strategy accordingly.
The strongest checkers player is a program called Chinook written by a team led by Jonathan Schaeffer. Marion Tinsley, world champion from 1955-1962 and 1975-1991, won a match against the machine in 1992. In 1994, he had to resign in the middle of an even match because of health reasons; he died shortly thereafter. Chinook was retired after winning the world man-machine champion title. Today's PC programs are stronger than the best humans. It is generally expected that checkers will be solved by 2010.
It is a common misconception that checkers has been solved. The best computers can now beat all humans, but checkers is not yet completely solved. However, the man-machine title is not as meaningful as it was 10-20 years ago, because most human experts are over 60 years old, as few/no young players have invested the effort to become experts.
The number of legal positions in checkers is estimated to be 1018, and it has a game-tree complexity of approximately 1031.
Variants
- In Spanish/German/Russian checkers the kings can move as far as they want along any diagonal, like a bishop in chess; although, they cannot capture like a Bishop.
- In international draughts (or international checkers), the board is 10x10 with 20 pieces each, and the kings move as far as they want on diagonals. This is popular in the Netherlands, France, some parts of Africa and some parts of the former USSR and other eastern European countries.
- In Turkish checkers pieces move straight forwards or sideways, kings moving like a rook in chess, so that both red and black squares are used. Each player starts with 16 pieces in the first two rows.
- In Halma pieces can move in any direction and jump over any other piece, friend or enemy. Each player starts with 19 (2-player) or 13 (4-player) pieces all in one corner and tries to move them all into the opposite corner.
- Chinese Checkers is based on Halma, but uses a star-shaped board divided into triangles, and is played using marbles instead of chips.
Famous Checkers Players
- Walter Hellman
- Asa Long
- Marion Tinsley
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Checkers."
Synonym: CheckersSynonym: draughts (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Amusement | Chess, draughts, checkers, checquers, backgammon, dominos, merelles, nine men's morris, go bang, solitaire; game of fox and goose; monopoly; loto; |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Checkers |
| English words defined with "checkers": black ♦ Checkerwork ♦ Fox and geese ♦ white. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "checkers": checkering-machine operator, Courtesy Clerks ♦ duoflex checker system ♦ freight clerk ♦ grip checkerer, machine ♦ QUEER CHECKERS ♦ rude boy ♦ STOCK CHECKERER II. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | And Spike built a robot Buffy to play checkers with (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Chinese Checkers (1964) Baby Checkers (1940) Checkers (1937) Pathé Checkers Comedies: Trying Them Out (1930) Checkers (1919) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
References | |||
Books |
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High Tech |
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Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Shown is a picture of games: dice, checkers, jacks, chessmen and a chess board. Credit: Linda Bartlett (photographer). |  | U.S. American National Red Cross Hospital No. 5, Auteuil, France. : Red Cross man watching two patients playing checkers. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Members of the ship's crew on the forecastle, circa 1864-65. Frank W. Hackett, a former officer of the ship, wrote in 1910: "The officer standing in the background, at the extreme prow of the ship, is W.N. Wells, Executive Officer. The man in the fore ground with his arm on the nine-inch gun is White, the gunner. Sergeant of Marines, Stanley, is sitting in the fore-ground, near the capstan". Men are playing checkers by the capstan. Anti-boarding nettings are rigged on each side of the ship but rolled up in way of the bow guns. There are a number of black sailors visible among the crew. Credit: NAVY. |  | Crewmen relaxing on deck, while the ship was in the James River, Virginia, on 9 July 1862. View looks forward on the starboard side, with the gun turret beyond. Note men playing checkers at right. Another man is reading a newspaper by the starboard smokestack. Credit: NAVY. |
 | Two black boys playing checkers and another one watching in summer playschool, Harlem, New York, N.Y. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Checkers at sheep shearing outfit, Malheur County, Oregon. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Playing checkers with bottle caps along highway between Charleston and Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Gibson, Indiana. A game of checkers at the railroad (YMCA) Young Men's Christian Association. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Niagara Falls, New York. Entertaining guest playing Chinese checkers on Nan Hannegan's birthday at Mrs. Hannegan's boardinghouse for war workers. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Dearborn, Michigan. National Labor Relations Board election for union representation at the River Rouge Ford plant. Workers receiving a ballot. Government official and labor checkers seated at the table. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Comfort" by Elle Jiang Commentary: "Old fashioned checkers set." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
Henry David Thoreau | All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | Also popular are transparent fabrics and traditional stripes and checkers. (references) | |
Economic History | West Bank | The number of direct franchises is still very small, but three U.S. fast food franchisers -- Checkers and Pizza Inn -- have opened in WB/G over the last few years. (references) |
West Bank | A growing low-cost fast-food sector, where American-style pizza parlors and hamburger and chicken chains such as Checkers and Pizza Inn, are already popular among Palestinians, may attract other American food franchisers looking to enter the WB/G market. (references) | |
West Bank | U.S. companies such as Checkers, Coca-Cola, Culligan, Enron, Hewlett Packard, Intercontinental Hotel, Microsoft, Motorola, Oracle, Pepsi, Procter and Gamble, Timex, and Xerox have been operating in WB/G since before the latest events either by opening new franchises or setting up operations. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Checkers" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 95.83% of the time. "Checkers" is used about 24 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 95.83% | 23 | 72,767 |
| Noun (proper) | 4.17% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 24 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Country | Name |
| USA | Checkers Drive-In Restaurants, Inc. |
| (more examples...) |
Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.
Expressions using "checkers": chinese checkers ♦ company checkers ♦ company spotters checkers ♦ play checkers. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "checkers": spelling-checkers, style-checkers. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
checkers | 5,188 | virus checkers | 38 |
online checkers | 408 | yahoo game checkers | 35 |
chinese checkers | 361 | free online checkers | 35 |
internet checkers | 356 | spell checkers | 32 |
checkers game | 333 | chinese checkers rule | 30 |
play checkers | 247 | back checkers door | 30 |
yahoo checkers | 148 | free checkers download | 29 |
checkers auto part | 130 | checkers msn | 29 |
java checkers | 125 | board game checkers | 28 |
checkers weld | 116 | play chinese checkers | 27 |
checkers rule | 116 | back checkers door yahoo | 26 |
checkers auto | 87 | checkers on line | 25 |
play checkers online | 81 | charlotte checkers | 25 |
checkers spot weld | 75 | checkers online game | 24 |
checkers free | 69 | car checkers | 23 |
checkers strategy | 67 | checkers fast food | 23 |
checkers restaurant | 64 | chinese checkers online | 22 |
chess and checkers | 52 | play checkers free | 18 |
free checkers game | 50 | checkers speech | 17 |
checkers download | 42 | checkers pogo | 17 |
hilton checkers | 17 | ||
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "checkers"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | damë (court card, Dame, queen). (various references) | |
Asturian | dames. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | карирана материя (checker, chequers), дама (chequers, draughts, gentlewoman, hopscotch, lady, partner, picture card, queen). (various references) | |
Cebuano | dama. (various references) | |
Chamorro | dama. (various references) | |
Chinese | 验查员 (Checker). (various references) | |
Czech | dáma (chequers, Dame, draught-board, draughts, lady). (various references) | |
Danish | damspil. (various references) | |
Dutch | damspel. (various references) | |
Esperanto | damoj, damludo. (various references) | |
Faeroese | damm. (various references) | |
Finnish | tammipeli (draughts), regeneraattoriristikko (checkerwork, regenerator packing). (various references) | |
French | ruchage (chequers), empilage (checker, checkerwork, chequer). (various references) | |
Frisian | damspul. (various references) | |
German | damespiel (draughts). (various references) | |
Greek | γόμωση καμαρών (checkerwork, regenerator packing), ντάμα (checker, draughts, lady, partner), τάβλι (backgammon, gammon). (various references) | |
Hungarian | dámajáték (chequers, draughts), ostáblajáték (chequers). (various references) | |
Indonesian | dam. (various references) | |
Inuktitut | nuktaqtu. (various references) | |
Italian | impilaggio (allotment, checkerwork, regenerator packing, stacking, stacking allotment), esaminatore (assayer, assayers, checker, examiner), dama (Dame, draughts, lady, partner). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 西洋碁 , チェーン店 (a check, celesta, chain, chain store, chair, chairman, Chechin, Chechnia, checker, checker-player, check-in, check-in counter, checkmate, check-out, checksum, Chernobyl, cherry, chess, chess match, Czech Republic, Czechoslovakia). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | チェッカーズ , せいようご. (various references) | |
Korean | 검수원 (Checker). (various references) | |
Manx | tawlish (draughts). (various references) | |
Norwegian | damspill. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | eckerschay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | verificadores, jogodedamas, jogo de damas (drafts, draughts), empilhagem do regenerador (checkerwork, regenerator packing), damas (ladies). (various references) | |
Provencal | damas. (various references) | |
Romanian | joc de dame (draughts). (various references) | |
Russian | шашки (chequers, draught, draughts). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | igra dame (chequers). (various references) | |
Spanish | damas (chequers, draughts, ladies, madams). (various references) | |
Swedish | damspel (draughts). (various references) | |
Turkmen | юaюka (r) (checkers (Asian style)). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | шашки (dam). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "checkers": forecheckers. (additional references) | |
| |
"Checkers" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: chacker, chalkers, checher, chechers, checknr, chekers, Cheshers, chinkers, chuckara, chukkers, heckers, schmecker. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "checkers" (pronounced khe"kerz) |
| 3 | -k er z | acres, anchors, askers, attackers, automakers, autoworkers, conquers, cookers, backers, bakers, bankers, Barkers, Bickers, bikers, blockers, bloodsuckers, bonkers, bookers, breakers, brokers, bunkers, cankers, caretakers, carjackers, carmakers, caseworkers, clockers, clunkers, coworkers, crackers, dockers, dockworkers, dressmakers, drinkers, drugmakers, fakers, farmworkers, filmmakers, firecrackers, flickers, freethinkers, gawkers, hackers, hawkers, hijackers, hikers, homemakers, hookers, icebreakers, jokers, kickers, knickerbockers, knickers, Lakers, lawbreakers, lawmakers, leakers, linebackers, liquors, lockers, lookers, loudspeakers, makers, markers, massacres, matchmakers, metalworkers, moneymakers, monikers, moviemakers, newsmakers, nonsmokers, oddsmakers, onlookers, pacemakers, packers, parkers, peacemakers, pickers, plunkers, printmakers, quakers, rackers, rakers, rankers, rockers, seekers, shakers, shoemakers, slackers, sleepwalkers, slickers, smokers, sneakers, snickers, speakers, squeakers, stalkers, steelmakers, steelworkers, stickers, stinkers, stockbrokers, strikebreakers, strikers, suckers, takers, talkers, tankers, thinkers, toolmakers, trackers, traffickers, troublemakers, truckers, vicars, walkers, whiskers, woodpeckers, woodworkers, workers, Yonkers, younkers. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: rechecks. | |
| Words within the letters "c-c-e-e-h-k-r-s" | |
-1 letter: checker, creches, recheck, screech. | |
-2 letters: checks, cheeks, cheers, creche, creeks, creesh, recces. | |
-3 letters: ceres, check, cheek, cheer, creek, eches, esker, hecks, heres, recce, recks, reeks, scree, sheer. | |
-4 letters: cees, cere, eche, ekes, heck, here, hers, reck, recs, reek, rees, resh, seek, seer, sere, skee. | |
-5 letters: cee, eke, ere, ers, her, hes, rec, ree, res, sec. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-c-e-e-h-k-r-s" | |
+1 letter: prechecks. | |
+2 letters: checkreins, chickarees, forechecks. | |
+4 letters: backbenchers, breechblocks, crosschecked, electroshock, forecheckers, neckerchiefs, shellcracker, weathercocks. | |
+5 letters: backstretches, checkerboards, chokecherries, counterchecks, electroshocks, neckerchieves, shellcrackers. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Familiar 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Names: Company Usage | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
