Checkers and variants

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:
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.