Queen

The origin of the game lies in France in the 10th and 11th centuries, the game board was taken over from the well-known "chess game". Another parallel with chess was that the player was not forced to capture an opponent`s checker when given the opportunity. Checkers is a strategic board game for two players played on a 64 square board. There are both black and white squares. The game pieces are round, flat stones, mostly made of plastic or wood in the game colors black and white. Each player receives 12 stones. You can move the pieces one square diagonally, but only the black squares are used. The opponent`s stones may be jumped over, as long as the space behind them is free. If, after jumping over an opponent`s piece, the player can again jump over an opponent`s piece from this position, he may do so until no further move is possible. After skipping, the opposing stone is removed from the playing field. If a piece reaches the base line of the opponent`s field, it is made into a "queen" by placing a 2nd piece on the first one, then you can move forwards or backwards and jump as far as you like.

There are of course other variants of the game and the rules, which vary from country to country. In most English-speaking countries, such as Ireland, Great Britain, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the queen may only move one square at a time.

Another variant is "Lady 100" This is played in clubs in over 60 countries and is also known as "International Checkers" due to its widest spread.

Nowadays, of course, the game of checkers is also available as a computer-based game in which you have the computer as your opponent. IBM was the first company to develop an electronic version of the game back in 1952. Today`s computing power makes it almost impossible to win against these programs. Most recently, the world champion hit Marion Tinsley in 1992 the Ladies Program Chinook , which was developed by Jonathan Schaeffers and his co-workers.

Queen

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