Beginning Checkers (English: Draughts)

The game of Checkers (English: Draughts)

Draughts is a duel, a battle of ideas. You win your game because your ideas are better, stronger, than of those of him whom you play. This does not mean that you have to be related to Einstein to be a draughts champion. If you have an imagination, know the truth when you see it, and can keep a straight face, then you are half-way there.
Now, ideas about draughts and probably almost anything else come from knowledge, which you can get in two ways. By experience, or by thinking it out for yourself. Many players will tell you experience is the only teacher; and they will point with pride to the fact that they have put in some thirty or forty years, amassing draughts lore. By the time I was in my late 'teens I could usually take these experienced woodpushers and trim them down to size in about half an hour. Even now, it is the really original player, the one who has his own ideas about the game, who gives me the most trouble.
When you go into a fight, of any sort, a main concern must be the battlefield, so to speak. It may be there are danger zones which you must shun, into which you must seek to impel the foe: these should be known. It may be there are key points which, seized, will control the whole sphere of action and will let the course of events be dictated - by you, or by the other player? If we take a look at the board se may get some ideas of this.
You may think that looking only at an empty board will not tell you much about the game -beyond the bare fact that, as draughts is played on all squares of the same hue, all the moves and jumps are done in an oblique direction.

DIAGRAM 1

Look again, and note first that the squares are not all the same - those in the centre of the board are very unlike those around the perimeter. From the centre, it uses only a few moves to get to any square on the board; a few steps and you are at the scene. It is a long way from one side of the board to the other; by the time you get there it may be too late. Apart from speed, the central squares offer a wider scope: from them you can assail or uphold either flank, wherever there is the more profit. In some cases you will switch your attack, or defence, from this flank to that; and usually you will need to pass through the central squares. If these are in your control you can carry out your plan; while if they are ruled by the foe your communications are cut and your men may have to slink around the side-lines, lurking in the shadows until in the end, alone, they are made away with. Control of the centre can mean control of the board.
If the outer squares are less desirable, then of these the squares in the very corners of the board will be even less so and in many cases they are really unsafe. A boxer will not be pinned on the ropes if he can help it - if he is held fast in a corner then he is in dire trouble.
The four corners of a draughts board are not identical. Two of them consist of only one square with one exit from that square: these single corners will as a rule be good places to stay away from. The double corner squares protect each other, and with twin exits will be safe in contrast to the single corners.
Now, all these remarks may give you the idea that by playing towards the centre all the time you can step out along the winning path; but go not so fast. That is the way to ruin. If you move all your men to the centre they will only get in the way of each other and give rise to a jam. A tightly packed group calls forth a pincer movement from the foe. Control is the essential; you occupy the centre by as many men as will gain control, but no more. You get control when your opponent is unable to move on to any of the centre squares and so is forced into the less favoured areas of the board. This is in fact your ultimate goal: to drive the enemy into the wilderness where he shall perish. Central control is a means to this end.
We can stress this view of the board, by contrasting the action of a king to that of a man. A king surveys the board in all directions, and the power of a king may be felt near and far. Not so a man, which from the first sees a vista rapidly waning in size and scope; at each step the range narrows, the danger grows, and so often the short life is put out long ere there is any chance to be a king. This is why it is not wise to let a man that is well advanced come to be fixed on the side of the board; there it will be cut off from comrades and be of no use, perhaps for the rest of
the game, and the time and effort spent in advancing it will have been wasted.
A chain of squares across the board forms an oblique line. Perhaps we ca call such lines diagonals - after all, that is what they are. As you will soon see, there are seven diagonals. However, only one of them is quite straight from end to end; that is the diagonal which extends from single corner to single corner, thus:

DIAGRAM 2

It may be as well to estimate the nature of a diagonal you intend to occupy or control. A diagonal may affect the power of a piece just as we find a square to do. The most obvious effect that the single corner diagonal has is that it cuts the board into halves, as it were. It divides your forces from those of the foe. Seen from this angle, at the start of a game only one of your twelve men is already in the enemy area; three are on neutral ground. In playing an attacking game these men will be brought into action with little delay, you may guess, and you will be right.
The single corner diagonal is the line of defence (we can call it the D-line) that separates the two armies: to gain control of this line is to take the initiative; to cross it is to begin the attack.
In the following set-up neither side takes any risks and control i shared.

DIAGRAM 3

The D-line

If the single corner diagonal is defensive in character, then a line which cuts across it and through the centre of the board must clearly be termed a line of attack: any activity along this line signifies aggression. This is the A-line.
In Diagram 5, the Blacks occup their own A-line and in that way control it. Whether they also control White's A-line will depend on the placing of the White men, which I do not show.Wherever they are,

DIAGRAM 4

The A-line

DIAGRAM 5
A-line control

one thing is plain - they cannot be on the like squares on White’s side of the the board, as both armies cannot be attacking at the same time along their own A-line. In other words, the player who first engages in an A-line attack takes the lead. The opponent must reply in some other way.
In both Diagrams 3 and 5, did you notice the extra man at the base? Though this man takes no active part in commanding the diagonal yet the added strength is desirable, for it is the base which the opponent will attack.
If the base can be destroyed the whole structure may break up.
It is here that we have the case for the squares at the outer edges of the board. A man on such a square is immune from direct 'capture' (the word often used by draughts players to denote a jump; yet the act of leaping over an enemy piece surely symbolizes 'over thy dead body' - but this is by the way). A man at the edge of the board is in a position to support other men which may form a chain of some power. A strong player will in this way transform into a weapon what might have been a defect.

I clarify this point because it is one about which most tyros are haz and very few self-styled experts are able to enlighten them on it.
The A and D diagonals are the major lines of attack and defence. You expand the power and scope of your men when you fill and control vital lines with them, so it is, of course, this you will try to do.
The diagonal which runs this side of the A-line has by contrast much less import; for the greater part of its length points to the side of the board.
It’s best squares are those at the edges, which may be used to support more active pieces. The B-line (the name comes easily to it) is a diagonal with weaknesses, which a clever opponent will often make use of for his own ends.
One of the more potent ways is for the foe to place a man on the square which intersects your D- and B-lines, dominating both and undermining your A-line also. Beware of danger at the spot marked X!
Most of the C-lin runs towards the centre and so it is stronger than the nearby B-line, and as also this part of the C-line intersects the attacking A-line it can be termed an important diagonal. I need hardly say that the square at which the A- and C-lines meet and cross is of great value in formational play, both in attack and in counter-attack. It is a key square, and now you know why.

DIAGRAM 6

The weak B-line

DIAGRAM 7

The C-Line

The lines E and F are for the most part defensive, supporting as they do activity along the D-line. This is their main utility

DIAGRAM 8

The E-line

DIAGRAM 9

The F-line

If you look at Diagram 3, you will see that both sides occupy their E-lines, and this is a typical set-up.Ending our alphabetical trip along the diagonals, we arrive at G:

DIAGRAM 10

The fact that the G-line has almost all the features of the A-line tempts one to regard it as a line of attack, until we realise that what is our G-line is also the opponent's A-line. Any attacks along this line may be expected to stem from the opposite side of the board rather than from our side. However, if we first set up a strong formation along our A-line then an attack along the G-line can be effectual, thus:

DIAGRAM 11

Here, Black advances two men along the G-diagonal with the powerful support of the formation shown before, at Diagram 5. This is about the best way to conduct a G-line attack.
In general, an advance early in the game along the G-line serves only to forestall enemy activity and is a defensive measure. In Diagram 12 below, Black has thrown away the natural advantages of having the right to move first and so make the first threat, and here plays for safe defence.

DIAGRAM 12

Around the early nineteenth century, most of the leading Masters thought that starting off a game in such a way as this would give Black a weak formation. Most of the moderns consider it a good method of opening. This may seem just another case of the light of present-day knowledge illumin- ating the dark ages. Not so. The truth is that the old-timers held a view of the word 'weak' not at all like that of the modern players. To them, a weak opening was one which promised few chances of getting a win, though it might be safe enough merely to get a draw - weakness denoted lack of opport- unity rather than danger - the nineteenth-century players thought the proper aim in playing draughts was to win the game. Nowadays, the view is that the player should first and foremost play to avoid defeat, that is to say, play for a drawn result. Of course, if an opportunity to win should appear (and it IS by chance) then go for it, but keep the draw in sight at all times.
To the modernist then, an opening is not weak if it is safe for a draw, even though it may offer virtually no chances to win.
My money is on the old-timers in this. I play the game to win. I make the chances. I win all the games I can, and I do not wait for chances to win. I make the chances. Maybe that is why I am Champion. However, I have the perfect system for anybody who wants to become unbeatable at the game, and it is this. Do not play. Then you can't lose.
If we now sum up our survey of the squares and diagonals, we must come to see very clearly that as the squares often determine the value of the pieces, so the action of the pieces as a whole may determine the character and strength of the diagonals - a diagonal is strong because it allows the build-up of telling formational patterns. It might be useful to state generally that, early in the game, when we have available numbers of men to form chains of attack or defence, then the diagonals are of paramount importance. Late in the game, when forces are dwindling to a few scattered units, then the individual squares come into their own.
To master these features of the board is a basic ‘must’ in pursuing a grasp of the mysteries of the game. You can hardly overdo this, you cannot know your board too well. Whatever plans you may conceive, however grand the scale, if they do not take into account the contours of the field of battle then they will not work out. The successful boxer knows how to use the ring.
You must know how to use the board.
Here is a composite picture of the seven diagonals, see from the point of view of each player. Study this well.