Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Draughts |
DraughtsNoun1. 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 "draughts" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1258. (references) |
(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: DraughtsSynonym: checkers (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: Draughts |
| English words defined with "draughts": Draughtboard ♦ Protocolist ♦ Tableman. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "draughts": Draught of Thor ♦ hydrostatic curves ♦ May Molloch. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
 |
| "Fancy a pint?" by Denis R. Commentary: "Draughts in a Brighton Pub (Pull and Pump)." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
John Gay | Fill it up. I take as large draughts of liquor as I did of love. I hate a flincher in either. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| "Draughts" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 97.90% of the time. "Draughts" is used about 143 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) | 97.9% | 140 | 26,789 |
| Lexical Verb (-s form) | 2.1% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 143 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "draughts": play draughts ♦ polish draughts. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "draughts": draughts-person. | |
Ending with "draughts": down-draughts. | |
| 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 |
draughts | 40 |
draughts turkish | 32 |
checkers draughts | 8 |
draughts international | 4 |
draughts game | 3 |
draughts rule | 3 |
draughts wyllie | 2 |
draughts sage | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "draughts"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Arabic | لعبة الداما, الداما. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | дама (checkers, chequers, gentlewoman, hopscotch, lady, partner, picture card, queen). (various references) | |
Chinese | 草稿 (Draft, draught). (various references) | |
Czech | dáma (checkers, chequers, Dame, draught-board, lady). (various references) | |
Danish | hydrostatiske kurver (hydrostatic curves, The variations of ship hydrostatic data with draught are shown by a set of curves.Extremely useful in the assessment of end draughts and the stability of a ship in various conditions of loading.The calculations for such curves are now normally made by a c). (various references) | |
Dutch | carènediagram (hydrostatic curves, The variations of ship hydrostatic data with draught are shown by a set of curves.Extremely useful in the assessment of end draughts and the stability of a ship in various conditions of loading.The calculations for such curves are now normally made by a c). (various references) | |
Finnish | tammipeli (checkers). (various references) | |
French | jeu de dames. (various references) | |
German | Luftzüge. (various references) | |
Greek | ντάμα (checker, checkers, lady, partner). (various references) | |
Hungarian | dámajáték (checkers, chequers). (various references) | |
Italian | dama (checkers, Dame, lady, partner). (various references) | |
Korean | 초안 (Draft, draught). (various references) | |
Manx | tawlish (checkers). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | aughtsdray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | jogo de damas (checkers, drafts). (various references) | |
Romanian | joc de dame (checkers), joc de şah. (various references) | |
Russian | шашки (checkers, chequers, draught). (various references) | |
Scottish | dàmais. (various references) | |
Spanish | damas (checkers, chequers, ladies, madams), juego de damas (checkers). (various references) | |
Swedish | damspel (checkers). (various references) | |
Turkish | dama oyunu (checker, Chequer, draught). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "draughts": draughtsman, draughtsmen. (additional references) | |
| |
"Draughts" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: daught, draght, draughtt, draut. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "draughts" (pronounced dra"fts) |
| 6 | d r a" f t s | drafts. |
| 5 | -r a" f t s | crafts, grafts, rafts. |
| 4 | -a" f t s | hafts, shafts. |
| 3 | -f t s | airlifts, camshafts, crankshafts, crofts, drifts, forklifts, gifts, handcrafts, handicrafts, lifts, lofts, overdrafts, rifts, shifts, sifts, swifts, thefts, thrifts, tufts, updrafts. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-d-g-h-r-s-t-u" | |
-1 letter: draught, dustrag. | |
-2 letters: aughts, garths, ghauts, gradus, guards, tragus. | |
-3 letters: adust, argus, aught, darts, dauts, drags, drats, drugs, duras, durst, garth, gauds, gaurs, ghast, ghats, ghaut, grads, guard, guars, gursh, hadst, hards, harts, hurds, hurst, hurts, ruths, sadhu, saugh, shard, shrug, sugar, surah, sutra, tahrs, thuds, thugs, trash, trugs, turds. | |
-4 letters: arts, dags, dahs. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-d-g-h-r-s-t-u" | |
+1 letter: daughters. | |
+2 letters: distraught. | |
+3 letters: draughtiest, draughtsman, draughtsmen, slaughtered. | |
+4 letters: daughterless, distraughtly, dreadnoughts, goddaughters, stepdaughter. | |
+5 letters: stepdaughters. | |
| 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: Commercial | 5. Images: Digital Art 6. Quotations: Familiar 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
