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 ...

) 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 Check (also checker, Brit: chequer) is a pattern of modified stripes consisting of crossed horizontal and vertical lines which form squares. The pattern typically contains two colours where a single checker (that is a single square within the chec ...

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. The ...

) is played. Most commonly, it consists of 64 squares (8×8) of alternating dark and light color, typically green and buff (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 A chessboard is a used to play chess. It consists of 64 squares, 8 rows by 8 columns, on which the chess pieces are placed. It is square in shape and uses two colours of squares, one light and one dark, in a chequered pattern. During play, the bo ...

. 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 L ...

featured puzzles based on checkerboards in his November 1962 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. A square checkerboard with an alternating pattern is used for games including: * Amazons * Chapayev *

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

) * Czech draughts *

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 * Frisian draughts *

Gounki Gounki is an abstract strategy game Abstract strategy games admit a number of definitions which distinguish these from strategy games in general, mostly involving no or minimal narrative theme, outcomes determined only by player choice (with no ...

* International draughts * Italian draughts * Lines of Action * Pool checkers *

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 pe ...

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

. * Arimaa *

Breakthrough Breakthrough or break through may refer to: Arts Books * ''Break Through'' (book), a 2007 book about environmentalism by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger * ''Break Through'' (play), a 2011 episodic play portraying scenes from LGBT life * ...

* Crossings *

Mak-yek Mak-yek ( th, หมากแยก, ) is a two-player abstract strategy board game played in Thailand and Myanmar. Players move their pieces as in the rook in Chess and attempt to capture their opponent's pieces through custodian and interven ...

* Makruk * 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, 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