What does draughts mean?

Draughts is the British name for checkers. The word comes from the verb “to draw”, in the old sense of “to move”, so the game is named for moving pieces across the board. In Britain a single piece is also called a draught.

The word goes back to Middle English draught, which is related to the Old English verb dragan, “to draw, drag”. “Checkers” comes from somewhere else. The American name is taken from the checkered board the game is played on.

Both names cover the same family of board games, where you capture your opponent’s pieces by jumping over them. Americans say checkers. In Britain and much of the English-speaking world, people say draughts. If you only want to know whether the two names mean the same game, is draughts the same as checkers? answers that.

Where did draughts come from?

Nobody knows exactly where or when draughts began, and no one person invented it. The game took shape in Europe in the Middle Ages, probably in France or Spain, around the 12th century. Its jumping capture most likely came from an older Arabic game called Alquerque.

This post sticks to the timeline: when and where the game appeared, as far as the sources can show. For how the national rule sets grew apart after that, read our history of checkers.

A lot of accounts start the story in ancient Egypt. The firmest trace there is a board for Zamma, a North African game from the draughts family. It survives among drawings scratched on roof slabs at Kurna, in Egypt, from around 1400 BC.

Even that link is loose. Mats Winther, who documents traditional board games, warns that Zamma as people play it today probably owes a lot to draughts from the 17th century onward. So the board shows that people in Egypt played a game on a grid of lines. It doesn’t show they played draughts.

You’ll also see older games from Egypt, Greece and Rome named as ancestors. The sources we checked don’t support a direct line from any of them, so we’ve left them out of this timeline.

Alquerque, the likely ancestor

Alquerque is the game most often named as the parent of draughts. It’s played on a board of 5 by 5 points joined by lines, with 12 pieces a side. A piece captures by jumping over an enemy piece to the empty point behind it, and it can chain several jumps in one turn. That’s the same capture you use in checkers today.

Alquerque’s exact medieval rules are uncertain. Arie van der Stoep, who wrote a history of draughts published in the Netherlands in 1984, argued in 2005 that medieval players could choose whether to capture. In most draughts games today, capturing is compulsory.

The Middle Ages: draughts takes shape in Europe

BoardGameGeek’s history of the checkers family dates the game to the 12th century, probably in France or Spain. Italy’s version, Dama, is also recorded from the medieval period.

Govert Westerveld has written at length on Spain’s part in the story, including the link between the game and the queen, or dama. That word still names the game in many places: damas in Spanish, dama in Italian and Turkish.

Germany had its own medieval game, now called Gothic checkers, played with 16 pieces a side. In the 17th century the Anglo-Saxon form of checkers won out over it, though Gothic checkers hung on until the mid-1800s.

The first books on draughts

The first known book on checkers was written by Antonio de Torquemada and published in Valencia, Spain, in 1547. Germany got its first draughts book around 1700, when Johann Wolfgang Schmidt published one in Nuremberg. Frisian draughts, a Dutch game, first shows up in print in 1725, in a book by Swaanenburg published in Amsterdam.

The English game got its own world title in the 1840s. Andrew Anderson of Scotland was the first champion. Our post on checkers world champions follows the title from there to today.

More than one kind of checkers

The family never settled on one rulebook. It split into about three dozen fixed rule sets, mostly by country. The two most played today are American checkers (English draughts) and International draughts on the 10x10 board.

A few others with their own history:

  • Russian checkers (shashki) was the main board game in Russia before chess.
  • Canadian checkers came from French settlers in Quebec, who called it the “grand jeu de dames”. Boards with 144 squares were on sale in London by 1805.
  • Brazilian checkers was once known as minor Polish draughts. It was played as far back as the 16th century and was popular in Holland, especially Amsterdam.

History of International Draughts

International draughts is the most widely played game in the family. It goes by other names too, including Polish draughts and jeu de dames international. BoardGameGeek dates it to around 1600.

The 10x10 board is older than today’s setup. An earlier form, Old Polish, gave each player 15 men on the first three rows. Today each side starts with 20 men on the first four rows. The game is now run by the World Draughts Federation (FMJD), and players in more than 60 countries play it in tournaments. You can play International draughts online here.

Important dates in the history of draughts

  • c. 1400 BC: a board for Zamma, a game in the draughts family, is scratched on roof slabs at Kurna, Egypt. Its link to draughts is uncertain.
  • 12th century: draughts takes shape in Europe, probably in France or Spain.
  • 1547: Antonio de Torquemada publishes the first known book on checkers, in Valencia.
  • 16th century: minor Polish draughts, today’s Brazilian checkers, is played in Holland.
  • c. 1700: the first German draughts book appears in Nuremberg.
  • 1725: Frisian draughts is first described, in Amsterdam.
  • 1805: 12x12 boards for Canadian checkers are on sale in London.
  • 1840s: the first world championship of English draughts. Andrew Anderson wins it.
  • 2007: a team at the University of Alberta proves that checkers is solved. With perfect play, American checkers is a draw.

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