Talk:English draughts

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.
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treat notation

NOTE: I posted the news article that the game had been solved by Chinook, but I haven't got the skill or experience to format it correctly. Can someone do this for me? NOTE: I'm pretty sure the last sentence in the article about the game being solved is wrong. "Not all positions that can arise from imperfect play have been analyzed." This makes no sense, as the only way to demonstrate that play is incorrect would be to analyze the resulting position to a final result. To prove the game is a draw with best play, you have to analyze all of the possible positions, unless I am missing something.

Yes, you are missing something. The statement is correct. Thank you for not changing what the article in Science said (directly or indirectly), even though you found it odd. The proof did not require a search through all possible positions, although it was misreported this way in a few newspaper articles and this incorrect statement was added and deleted several times. This might help: If I can move to A or B, and show that position A is a draw, then I can conclude that the original position is either a win or a draw for me. I don't have to evaluate position B, or positions which can only be reached through position B. The forward search only evaluated about 10^14 of the 10^21 positions. If they had to evaluate all 10^21 positions, they wouldn't be done yet. 10^21 is much, much greater than 10^14 (contradicting another curious error in an earlier version). 66.30.113.23 06:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for engaging on the subject; unfortunately your example didn't help me. (I'm not the original poster.) If you can move to A or B, and you can show that A is a draw, why do you have enough information to eliminate the possibility that moving to B would be a loss? Seems like I can restate your assertion as follows. Suppose I take two boxes and fill each of them with either 1, 2, or 3 beans. Then I ask you to choose one of the two boxes to open. If you count 1 bean in the box, how can you conclude that the other box must contain either 1 bean or 2? How do you eliminate the possibility of 3? Petershank (talk) 22:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I intend this article to give a detailed explanation of English draughts and remove the detailed explanation from draughts that should treat the whole groups of draughts, and not selectively digress on one variant that is not even the most popular form worldwide. Andries 12:51, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

done. Andries 08:48, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Isn't English Draughts the actual game of draughts, and what's called international draughts here is a different subversion? That's what I've learnt, anyway. AkiShinji 14:10, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

The New Scientist article is really bad. It is full of incorrect statements. Is it necessary to have it as a reference? 66.30.113.23 07:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Draw

Section "Rules" states that no draw is possible, section "Computational complexity" states that a certain tournament opening is a draw. So which is true? 141.252.27.113 09:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

In addition, the page Marion_Tinsley: "but Tinsley withdrew after only six games (all draws) for health reasons." Having no possible moves to do, is that a loss or a draw? 141.252.27.113 09:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Rule #12 of Tournament Rules of American Checkers Foundation states that a draw is possible under certain conditions. Citing this would probably violate copyright. (IANAL) So then please see usacheckers.com. 141.252.27.113 09:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


If Chinook plays the game from the starting position, it will never lose the game. In that sense, it will always at least draw.

Regarding Tinsely: He had pancreatic cancer and died less than one year later. After his 6th draw, he discontinued play. His game score was a draw, but, due to the constraints of the match, since his could not finish the match, the match was forfeited in favor of Chinook. Don Lafferty took over for Tinsley, and played out the rest of the match. This was done so that it would not be a total fiasco for the Sponsor, which was Silicon Graphics.

Regarding having no moves possible: In chess, if you can't move, and are not in check, it's a stalemate. In checkers, the side to move last wins, so if you still have pieces on the board, but they are all blocked, you still lose.

GothicChessInventor 17:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flying kings

It's inclear wheather English draughts have flyong kings or not. Article abuot international draughts statrs that the rules are similar except in int draughts piecs can capture backvards. But in int draughts there is flying kings. So something is incorrect —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.63.128.150 (talk) 06:48, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rules for jump

It isn't clear whether a jump may only be performed forward, or if backward jumps are also possible. Gil_mo 06:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Kings can jump in any direction, regular pieces only forward. Bubba73 (talk), 18:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Move question

I know the English hate any Americanization at Wikipedia, but seeing as the Dutch article calls this variant Checkers would a move be acceptable? At present "checkers" has no article and only exists as a redirect. I think there are many North Americans who are only vaguely aware it's also called "English draughts."--T. Anthony (talk) 08:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard of "english draughts" ever in my life. Checkers, of course. but "checkers" isn't "American" if it's called "checkers" in Dutch, now is it? Sneakernets (talk) 09:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of moves and merges, I was thinking that this should be merged with Draughts. What's the difference? The term "draughts" is British English for the game anyway, so "English Draughts" seems a bit redundant. Plus, the content is nearly the same anyway. Does anyone else agree with this? Mizu onna sango15/水女珊瑚15 22:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. The Draughts article has an unambiguous beginning: "Draughts is a group of abstract strategy board games between two players which involve .... The most popular forms are international draughts, played on a 10×10 board, followed by English draughts, also called American checkers that is played on an 8×8 board, but there are many other variants". It continues with the characteristics common to all variants, and then describes the variants. The English Draughts article is definitely robust enough to stand on its own as an encyclopedic description of this one (very popular) variant. Petershank (talk) 21:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

We could compromise, and move it to "chequers", <grin> -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:26, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] numbering of the squares

This article needs to tell how the squares are numbered, and how moves are recorded. Bubba73 (talk), 18:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I found a contradiction

One sentence says "[A common misconception is] that the game ends in a draw when a player has no legal move but still pieces remaining (true in chess but not in draughts; see stalemate)", while another sentence says "A player wins by capturing all of the opposing player's pieces, or by leaving the opposing player with no legal moves.". So which is it? When a player has no legal moves, do they lose or is it a stalemate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.177.113.133 (talk) 22:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Winner Loser Winner :P cleans up the board.

Tradition in some places —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.156.235.3 (talk) 17:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)