A checkerboard (

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances i ...

) or chequerboard (

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

; see spelling differences) is a board of checkered pattern on which

checkers Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...

(also known as

English draughts English draughts (British English) or checkers (American English), also called straight checkers or simply draughts, is a form of the strategy board game checkers (or draughts). It is played on an 8×8 checkerboard with 12 pieces per side. Th ...

) is played. Most commonly, it consists of 64 squares (8×8) of alternating dark and light color, typically green and

buff Buff or BUFF may refer to: People * Buff (surname), a list of people * Buff (nickname), a list of people * Johnny Buff, ring name of American world champion boxer John Lisky (1888–1955) * Buff Bagwell, a ring name of American professional ...

(official tournaments), black and red (consumer commercial), or black and white (printed diagrams). An 8×8 checkerboard is used to play many other games, including

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

, whereby it is known as a chessboard. Other rectangular square-tiled boards are also often called checkerboards.

Games and puzzles using checkerboards

The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis - Checkers

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lew ...

featured puzzles based on checkerboards in his November 1962

Mathematical Games column Over a period of 24 years (January 1957 – December 1980), Martin Gardner wrote 288 consecutive monthly "Mathematical Games" columns for ''Scientific American'' magazine. During the next years, through June 1986, Gardner wrote 9 more columns, ...

in Scientific American. A square checkerboard with an alternating pattern is used for games including: * Amazons *

Chapayev Vasily Ivanovich Chapayev or Chapaev (russian: link=no, Василий Иванович Чапаев; 5 September 1919) was a Russian soldier and Red Army commander during the Russian Civil War. Biography Chapayev was born into a poor peasan ...

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

and some of its

variants Variant may refer to: In arts and entertainment * ''Variant'' (magazine), a former British cultural magazine * Variant cover, an issue of comic books with varying cover art * ''Variant'' (novel), a novel by Robison Wells * "The Variant", 2021 e ...

(see chessboard) *

Czech draughts Czech draughts is a board game played in the territory formerly occupied by Czechoslovakia (the present day Czech Republic and Slovakia). It is governed by the Czech Draughts Federation. Game rules The draughtsboard has eight ranks and eight f ...

Draughts Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...

, also known as checkers *

Fox games Fox games are a category of asymmetric board games for two players, where one player is the fox and tries to eat the geese / sheep, and the opposing player directs the geese/sheep and attempts to trap the fox, or reach a destination on the board. ...

Frisian draughts Frisian draughts is a variant of draughts native to Friesland in the Netherlands.The rules are similar to International draughts, but is notable for its unique feature of allowing for orthogonal captures (up, down, left, right) in addition to the ...

* Gounki *

International draughts International draughts (also called international checkers or Polish draughts) is a strategy board game for two players, one of the variants of draughts. The gameboard comprises 10×10 squares in alternating dark and light colours, of which onl ...

Italian draughts Italian draughts ( it, Dama italiana) is a variant of the draughts family played mainly in Italy and Northern Africa. It is a two-handed game played on a board consisting of sixty-four squares, thirty-two white and thirty-two black. There are twe ...

Lines of Action Lines of Action (or LOA) is an abstract strategy board game for two players invented by Claude Soucie. The objective is to connect all of one's pieces into a single group. The game was recommended by the Spiel des Jahres in 1988. Rules Goal The ...

Pool checkers American Pool Checkers, also called "American Pool", is a variant of draughts, mainly played in the mid-Atlantic and southeastern United States and in Puerto Rico. Basic rules As in the related game English draughts English draughts (Britis ...

Russian checkers Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

The following games require an 8×8 board and are sometimes played on a chessboard. *

Arimaa Arimaa () is a two-player strategy board game that was designed to be playable with a standard chess set and difficult for computers while still being easy to learn and fun to play for humans. It was invented in 2003 by Omar Syed, an Indian-Ame ...

* Breakthrough * Crossings * Mak-yek *

Makruk ''Makruk'' ( th, หมากรุก; ; ), or Thai chess, is a board game that is descended from the 6th-century Indian game of ''chaturanga'' or a close relative thereof, and is therefore related to chess. It is part of the family of chess ...

* Martian Chess

Mathematical description

Given a grid with

m

rows and

n

columns, a function

f(m,n)

\displaystyle  = \begin
\text & \text\ m \equiv n \pmod 2 \, , \\
\text & \text\ m \not\equiv n \pmod 2\\
\end

or, alternatively,

\displaystyle  = \begin
\text & \text\ m + n \text, \\
\text & \text\ m + n \text \\
\end

The element

(m,n)=(0,0)

is black and represents the lower left corner of the board.

Gallery

File:Empty wooden chessboard.jpg, An empty 8×8 checkerboard File:Font Awesome 5 solid chess-board.svg, An empty 8×8 checkerboard diagram File:International draughts.jpg, The opening setup of

international draughts International draughts (also called international checkers or Polish draughts) is a strategy board game for two players, one of the variants of draughts. The gameboard comprises 10×10 squares in alternating dark and light colours, of which onl ...

, which uses a 10×10 checkerboard File:CheckersStandard.jpg,

tournament standard

References

{{wiktionary Draughts Game equipment

Games and puzzles using checkerboards

Mathematical description

Gallery

See also

References