International Draughts 10×10

Draughts (checkers): transfer from lines to squares

For more than thousand years, draughts (checkers) has been played on a lined board. In the 14th century the game was transferred to the chess board with its 8×8 squares. Later the 8×8 board was extended to 10×10 squares for the draughts variety we today call International Draughts. Where and when did this happen?

The romantic story

It was such a nice story that draughts players in France in the 18th century had made up. For a long time the 18th century French gentlemen played draughts like their ancestors: on the chess board, with rules of at least thousand years old. Until a day in 1723, when in the Palais Royal in Paris a traveler from Poland and an officer of the French army saw each other for some games of draughts. They revealed their selves as revolutionaries: they extended the board from 8×8 squares to 10×10 squares and invented new rules. A romantic story, but not more than fantasy. The reality is rather boring, unfortunately.

The boring reality

Actually, International Draughts was invented in the Netherlands in the second half of the 16th century. We do not know it for sure, but the first traces of draughts on a board with 10×10 squares were found in Amsterdam and the surrounding area. Before that, the Dutch played just like the French on the chess board, but with rules which had evolved further than the rules in France. The Dutch played for example with a long king, a king which moves along entire diagonals, like the bishop in chess, whereas the French played with the more ancient short king, a king which can only move to an adjacent square of the diagonal. In the 16th century the Dutch played this game with 2×15 pieces; in the second half of the 17th century they increased the number of pieces tot 2×20.

As late as the 17th century the game with 2×20 pieces reached Paris. At the picture three grandsons of king Louis XIV of France are playing this game; the painting, from an unknown artist, was made about 1690.

Until the 20th century, the game was only popular in the Netherlands and in France. After France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland founded the FMJD in 1947, Russian draughts players discovered the game, followed by draughts devotees in other countries. But not everywhere; in England and in the Scandinavian countries for example, and in many Asian countries, players stuck to the ancient draughts on the chess board. Nevertheless the 10×10 squares variety received its present name and with almost sixty affiliated countries lives up to it: International Draughts.

With thanks to www.draughtshistory.nl.