The History of Checkers
A game of simple rules and deep strategy.
An Ancient Board, a Medieval Game
Checkers' board and starting layout trace back to Alquerque, a capturing game played on a 5x5 lined board known in Egypt and the Middle East for over 3,000 years, and later popular in Moorish Spain.
Around the 12th century in southern France, someone combined Alquerque's diagonal captures with a chessboard, creating "Fierges" or "Jeu de Dames" - the direct ancestor of the game played today.
From France to the World
The game spread through Europe under many names - draughts in England, dama in Spain, dame in Germany - and crossed the Atlantic with colonists, becoming especially popular in the United States, where the 8x8 board and mandatory-capture rules used in this app (American checkers) took hold.
National and world championships have been held since the 19th century, with organized competitive play in Britain, the US and beyond producing generations of celebrated players and deeply studied openings.
A Game Solved
Checkers holds a unique place in game theory: in 2007, after nearly two decades of computation, Jonathan Schaeffer's program Chinook proved that checkers is a draw with perfect play by both sides - the most complex game solved this thoroughly at the time.
That doesn't make checkers any less fun to play - like a solved endgame in chess, knowing the theoretical result changes nothing about the skill needed to navigate a real game over the board.