Draughts

Draughts, called checkers in North American English, is a group of strategy board games for two players in which uniform pieces move diagonally forward across a checkered board and captures are made, in most variants compulsorily, by jumping over an opponent's piece. The most widely played form uses an 8 by 8 board with twelve pieces to a side; pieces move and capture diagonally only, and a piece that reaches the far edge is crowned a king with a greater range of movement. The game grew out of Alquerque, played on a 5 by 5 grid in medieval Spain, after players adapted its rules to the standard chessboard between the 13th and 16th centuries, establishing the diagonal-movement form that became Europe's standard. In 2007 Canadian computer scientists weakly solved the American variant, proving that perfect play by both sides always ends in a draw.