Entries by !Undertaker!

Author: !Undertaker!

Russian Checkers

Russian checkers (Shashki) are mainly played in the countries that were part of the Soviet Republic and in Israel.

Board and pieces
8x8 draughtboard with lower right white corner. Each player starts with 12 men (white and black) placed on the first 3 rows. Dark squares are used.

Author: !Undertaker!

International Checkers

It’s one of the more widespread draughts variants in the entire world. There are two very similar variants, whose only difference entails in the size of the board and the number of pawns: Brazilian Checkers and Canadian Checkers.

Board and pieces
10x10 draughtboard with lower right white corner. Each player starts with 20 men (white and black) placed on the first 4 rows. Dark squares are used.

Author: !Undertaker!

There are some time ago, I wrote an article about classic checkers where I made known his rules, his history and his peculiarities. My article only fell upon this variant, because it’s the most played in my country, Portugal. However, I love checkers and I know play many variants, so I decided to write one more article, but this time about many others checkers variants.

Checkers games common characteristics and rules:

Checkers game was modified in different parts of the world, causing nowadays the existence of numerous variants that, even if they keep the main concepts in common, may be very different between them.

Origin
Though it’s not clear the origin of this ancient game, there’re some studies and publications about draughts strategy published in Spain dated from the 16th century. Nowadays there are many variants of the game.

Description
Checkers board is used and the size may be 8x8, 10x10 or 12x12 depending on the variant. Players have variable number of pieces, clear for one of them and dark for the other; only the squares in one of the colours are used (dark or clear squares, depending on the variant).

Author: !Undertaker!

History:
Reversi is an ancient game whose origin is uncertain. The oldest references about similar games go back to late in the 19th century. In 1870 appeared a similar game using a cross shape board. Subsequently appeared another game played on an 8x8 square shape board.

Description:
Two players take part in this game. They need a board with 64 squares distributed in 8 rows and 8 columns, and 64 similar pieces of two colours: the obverse in one colour and the reversi in the other colour.

Objective:
The objective for each of the players is to finish the game with more pieces on the board in his own colour than the opponent.

Author: !Undertaker!

History:
This game is considered the more ancient variant of the game still played. It is practised in the Iberian Peninsula, North of Africa and many countries of South and Central America. Actually, it’s the second checkers variant more played in every world and the more practised checkers game in Latin countries and Maghreb.

Board and pieces:
8x8 draughtboard with lower right black corner. Each player starts with 12 men (white and black) placed on the first 3 rows.


Objective:
The aim is capturing or blocking all the opponent pieces, so that the player who cannot move when turn arrives is the loser of the game.
The game becomes in a draw when the number of remaining pieces or their position on the board does not make possible the victory for any of both sides, or both players agree.

Author: !Undertaker!

BrainKing.com is a success with a brilliant organization. Site has tournaments, ratings, forums, statistics and specially many and many games. However, there are games very interesting and known, but unfortunatelly don’t exist in BrainKing.com. So, I propose a new game: Domino.

Domino History
Dominoes are the descendants of dice sticks and dice. Although possibly used as a method of divination, fortune telling and certainly for gambling there is no doubt that dominoes have developed and evolved as a popular form of entertainment in which all players, regardless of literacy skills, can enjoy exciting games of chance and skill. Believed to originate from early Chinese tile games in 12th and 13th centuries, dominoes their more identifiable form of the game as we know now it was first recorded in 14th century China. The game appears to have reached western civilization when it first became popular in the courts of Mediterranean Europe trading nations in the 1700’s. Its popularity then spread though the rest of Europe in the 18th century and the game became known by the French word referring to a black and white hood often worn by catholic priests in cold weather, “Domino”.

The Domino
Traditional dominoes tiles are rectangular with a centre line dividing the domino face into two ends. Each end being marked black spots, commonly referred to as pips, arranged similar to those on a six-sided die (dice). It has become popular to also add a blank face to the domino set so that there seven possibilities on each domino end. A standard set of double six dominoes includes seven dominoes tile combinations featuring a blank (including a blank-blank), six with a one (including a 1-1), five with a two (including 2-2), four with a three and so on for a total of 28 unique dominoes. For longer games, games with more people or rule variations (such as Chicken Foot or Mexican Train) other domino sets such as double 9’s (55 tiles), double 12’s (91 tiles) and even double 18 (190 tiles) domino sets have become available.
Metal pins or studs were also inserted into the face of the domino between the two halves are known as “spinners” or spinner dominoes. These allowed the dominoes to spin more freely and make them easier to mix or shuffle while face down, as well as helping to protect the face of the dominoes.
Originally used to reduce cheating, at one point dominoes where made with ebony, matching the black pips, or another material on the back of the domino to prevent being able to see pips the face of the domino while they were face down. This two tone or bi-colour feature today is used to simply to add professional and unique look to a set of dominoes.
Modern commercial are mostly made from a durable resin and although they are available in a variety of sizes, materials and colours the traditional domino is ivory (off white/cream) coloured with black pips and usually measures about 1 inch long, ½ inch wide and ¼ inch thick.

Author: !Undertaker!

BrainKing.com has many games and they are very different between itself, like Chess, Checkers, Backgammon, Go, Reverse, for example. Each player has theirs favourite games, but there is a special game, the game most played in BrainKing.com. This game is Backgammon. Now, there are 1030 rated players in Backgammon.
Many times, we like to play a game and we think that know everything about this game, but in true, we don’t know anything about his history, his variants and his strategies.
So, I decide to make known a little more about this game.

History:
Backgammon is believed to have originated in Mesopotamia in the Persian Empire or the present day Iran Iraq and Syria. It’s the oldest known recorded game in history and it can be traced back thousands of years BC to boardgames played by the Egyptians, Sumerians, Romans and Persians.

Variants:
There are many variants to standard backgammon rules. Some are played primarily throughout one geographic region, and others add new tactical elements to the game, such as by altering the starting position, restricting certain moves, or assigning special value to certain dice rolls. Some variants: hyper-gammon, nackgammon, domino backgammon, duplicate backgammon, backgammon to lose, blocking backgammon and many others.

Author: !Undertaker!

Many people think that online games sites are only for playing...however, BrainKing.com is different. I remember the first time I played in this site, I was confused with so many links. In the beginning, I only play a few games, because Brains, Teams, Fellowships, Forums and so many others features were totally unknown for me.
After a while, I use others links and day after day I discover new features and I was searching for everything. I was amazed with the brilliant way how the site is organized. Everything is perfect since players' level, Brains, Teams Tournaments, Statistics, Ratings, etc. The most interesting thing is the players' level with different privileges, in accordance with his importance. This hierarchy, originating from chess, remembers me a monarchy, where everybody wants to have more power and go up level. The competition between players is entice and, on BrainKing.com, I can compete individually in standard games or tournaments. Unfortunately, I cannot play on Team Tournaments, but I look forward to join them. When I'm not playing, I like to visit Forums and talk with so different people from different countries. For me, this is very important, because I meet a lot of different and interesting people. Besides, I can frequently talk in French and especially in English and this is good for my vocational training. Everybody has ideas about the site and would like to see them put in practice on BrainKing.com. I tried to introduce classic checkers game and maybe this idea can become true. In my opinion, BrainKing.com belongs to everybody and this is fantastic for its success.
But BrainKing.com is much more than this and I usually search news in press monitoring or I use the search link to find everything I want.

So, for me, BrainKing.com is a big world.