lidraughts.org

Draughts Variants

#1

Hello everyone!

My name is Harris and I am a programmer/mathematician from New York City. I am currently doing research to synthesize all the online lists of draughts variants into one large database. So far I have found over forty national variants, but I am wondering if anyone knows of others not on my list?
Also, can anyone please testify as to whether Gothic, Eurasian, or Scandanavian checkers are being played today? Thanks for reading and have a great day :)

The database:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vE0-Si8ac-pKtqZC4mcF1mc1CTjDMEOzsjCIhhyZGuU/edit?usp=sharing

#3

Eurasian is played in correspondence in one Russian server which served as a Putin propaganda tool, and for political reasons I will not reveal it.

#6

Thank you kalnap! Do you know where in the world these games were originally played? (I assume Old French was in France)

Are they more modern inventions / or re-constructions of old games? Or have these games been played continuously for a long time.

#7

Gothic is very contemporary variant, it might be a reconstruction. Eurasian is known in the areas of former USSR, and onky among very enthusiastic and creative players. For long period of time Eurasian had a confusing labeling 'Babilonian draughts', and only in this century players decided to change the labeling.
By the way, I recommend you to provide Holland king rules as an extra to ordinary variants, except for Frisian, Scandinavian, Eurasian.
As for Scandinavian, it is very competitive variant, the '2 kings vs 1 king' endgame us much easier than in Frisian, but it requires huge promition. I would like to play Scandinavian, but there is no platform which supports it.
There is also a separate class of draughts which have a very specific capturing rule for king, which was discovered by Rusdian draughts historian Sargin, and which is implemented in Dagaz project as North American checkers. In that variant, a king captures by landing (instead of jumping!), if there is a vacant square on capturing diagonal next to the piece which is to be captured. This rule eliminates all cases where English / American rules can't allow to convert extra man into a win. Sargin found this king rule effective and he also proposed to allow this king rule to be applied to men.

#8

Thanks for clarifying - I had seen Babylonian draughts referenced elsewhere but didn’t know it was the same as Eurasian.

What are Holland king rules?

Is Scandinavian played in Scandinavia today? I have seen many rule sets, do you know which is pre-dominant?

I hope to make a website where you can play these games soon :) the website will first just have information about variants, I’ll post it here when ready

I saw this variant on Dagaz project and asked them about it a couple days and messaged them about it on Facebook (no response yet). Is it really from North America?

I think one of the hardest parts of the project is defining draughts! To me it’s a game where there are two teams who start with “men” on opposite sides of a rectangular board who can be promoted to kings if they reach the other side.

#9

I have asked my American friends about North American variant. They didn't know anything about it. Howeve, I saw some variant called Albuquerque at jpneto.github.io/world_abstract_games/checkers.htm . I have a feeling this might be a reference to this North American variant. Could you contact someone from that area for getting more information?

Reconnecting