Checkers and Draughts -- a guide to variants and literature
compiled by Michael Keller

Thanks for assistance to Philip Cohen, Ed Gilbert, Jake Kacher, Ken Lovell, Bob Newell, and Dennis Pawlek.
Also particular thanks to Vashon Island Books, from whom I've purchased many of the older books in my collection.

Table of Contents
Definition
A Brief History
General Rules
Checkers vs. Chess
Anglo-American Checkers
Flying King (Queen) Variants
  International Checkers
  Frisian Draughts
  Turkish Draughts (Dama)
Variants to Reduce Draws
Alternate Opening Positions
Modern Variants
Combinations of Chess and Checkers
Commercial Variants
Distant relatives of checkers
Notation and Diagrams
Software
Bibliography
  Anglo-American Checkers
     Introductory Works
     History and Biography
     Advanced Strategy
     Endgames and Problems
     Collections of Games
     Openings
        Go-as-you-please
        The Two-Move Era
        Three-Move Compilations
        Modern Works
        Individual Openings
  Computers
  Magazines and Newspapers
  Other Variants
     International Draughts (10x10)
     Pool Checkers
Organizations
Websites
Appendix 1: Anglo-American (8x8) Checker Openings
Appendix 2: Historical Notes on Individual Openings
Appendix 3: Glossary

Checkers or Draughts is a family of abstract two-player board games in which capturing is done by jumping over opposing pieces to remove them.   It is played on a checkered square board usually ranging from 8x8 to 12x12.   Most variants of the game are played on the dark squares only; each player starts out with a set of identical pieces which fill the dark squares of the first three or four ranks of their side of the board.  The terms checkers (mostly used in the United States and Canada) and draughts (used in most of the rest of the English-speaking world) should be considered interchangeable, like solitaire and patience.  [Note that when used as adjectives, the forms are usually singular: checker and draught.]

A Brief History
Checkers as we know it today probably developed in 12th-century France or Spain, on a chessboard, using the original form of chess queen called the fers, which could only move one square diagonally.  The pieces were likely the same flat disks used in one of the tables games (forerunner of backgammon).  Possibly checkers was at least inspired by the ancient game of Alquerque, but the earliest forms of checkers only have the jumping capture in common with Alquerque: pieces only move forward, promote on reaching the last rank, and captures might not begin until several moves have been made, since there are two empty rows separating the opposing forces.  The earliest form of draughts, as we know it today, unlike Alquerque, did not not have forced captures, although virtually all modern variants do: forced capture (jeu de force) was introduced in the 16th century.  Variants with flying kings (queens in French and Spanish) probably developed soon after the chess queen and bishop adapted their modern unlimited move around 1475 (see the introduction to Westerveld's Draughts Dictionary).   At some point regular pieces also gained the power to capture (but not to make regular moves) backwards, through backwards capture did not take root in Germany, and neither flying kings nor backwards capture in England.

The oldest book is supposed to have been published in 1547 by Antonio de Torquemada; this is lost and is only known through references in later books.  Modern research suggests the book was actually written by Juan de Timoneda; a book on draughts was published under his name in 1635 which is likely the same book.   Spanish draughts was already using flying kings (or long kings) in the 17th century, and the three kings vs. one king ending, later called Petrov's Triangle, appeared in Spanish books of the period.  In 1650, Juan Garcia Canalejas's book La gloriosa historia española del Juego de las Damas included one of the most famous opening traps, commonly named after him, but it actually appeared earlier in Pedro Ruiz Montero's 1591 Libro del juego de las damas vulgarmente nombrado el marro.   The game spread from France and Spain to the rest of Western Europe, and also to Russia, where a slightly different version evolved.    A number of books were published in Germany beginning in the 18th century; Russia produced a large amount of theory and literature starting in the late 19th century, and Brazil did so starting in the 1930's.

The European version expanded to a 10x10 board in the 18th century, and in France and the Netherlands this became the standard version, with the first world championship in 1885, and the World Draughts Federation (FMJD) formed in 1947 by France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland.  Known now as International Draughts, it has more than 70 member countries.

William Payne's 1756 An Introduction to the Game of Draughts was the first book in English.  Serious play began in Great Britain in the 19th century, and the first recognized World Champion was Scotland's Andrew Anderson in 1840.  Books, newspaper columns, and eventually magazines began to spread interest in the game.  It also gained popularity in the United States, which saw its first newspaper column on "checkers or draughts", edited by I.D.J. Sweet, in the 1855 New York Clipper.  By 1880, when H.D. Lyman was assembling a book of checkers problems (which was published in 1881), he drew from over 35 different American and British magazines and newspapers.   The English game also spread to Ireland and throughout the English-speaking world, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the Caribbean (especially Barbados).

In 1949, Arthur Samuel started programming the first checker-playing program, building on earlier work by Claude Shannon (who proposed, but never developed, an early idea for a chess-playing computer), and Christopher Strachey (who developed a draughts program for a video display in 1951 and presented his results at a conference in 1952).  Samuel worked out and tested various parameters for evaluating checkers positions, discarding those that did not work well.  By 1952 Samuel had a working program for the IBM 701 computer, and by 1955 the program was one of the first successful examples of machine learning (a term Samuel coined).   He pioneered some of the techniques of game programming (such as hashing, minimax, and alpha-beta pruning), which influenced later programmers in various games, including Gerald Tesauro's 1992 TD-Gammon and the chess program Deep Blue, both also developed at IBM.   Although Samuel's Checkers Player never reached master strength, other programs followed in its wake.   Tom Truscott and Eric Jensen wrote the next strong program at Duke University.  As personal computers became widespread, other programs were developed with the increasingly fast hardware becoming available.  In 2003, Ed Trice and Gil Dodgen published the first perfect play database, with every position up to 7 pieces in total, for their program World Championship Checkers.   In 2007, a team led by Canadian computer scientist Jonathan Schaeffer announced that their program Chinook had established that 8x8 American checkers (with unrestricted openings) was a draw with best play by both sides (other variants, particularly the larger International game, are far from being solved).

General Rules
In most variants, pawns (plain pieces, also called men or checkers) can only capture by short leap, jumping over an adjacent opposing piece to the vacant square immediately beyond.   Pawns which reach the last rank (kingrow) are promoted to kings (gaining the power to move and capture backwards in Anglo-American checkers), or in some variants queens (also called flying kings), which can move any number of vacant squares in one direction, and also capture by long leap, jumping over an opposing piece any distance away and landing any distance beyond, provided all of the intervening squares (except the square containing the piece to be captured) are vacant.   The object is to capture or block all of the opposing pieces.

In almost every variant, captures are mandatory, and a capturing piece must continue to capture if another capture is available from its landing square.   It is illegal to jump over a friendly piece, or to jump over an opposing piece twice.   In some variants, pieces are removed as soon as they are captured (which may allow other captures); others remove all captured pieces only at the end of a move.   Some variants require the maximum number of pieces to be captured; others allow any piece which can capture to do so, not necessarily one with the most available captures.    In most variants where pawns can capture backwards, a pawn which reaches the kingrow by capture but makes another capture on the same move, leaving the kingrow, is not promoted (Russian draughts is a notable exception).

At one time, there was a rule called huffing: if a player made a non-capturing move when a capture was available, the opponent could remove a piece which should have captured, then make a regular move (the opponent could also let the move stand, or require the move to be retracted and a capturing move played instead).  This rule was long ago abandoned in all serious play, although it can still be found in beginners' instructions and some general books on games (Cambodian and Malaysian draughts seems to be the only regional variants that still use huffing).

There are many regional (national) variants, which may differ in unimportant ways such as which player goes first and whether the double corner is to each player's left or right (the majority place the double corner on each player's right, with a light square in the right corner as in chess).  In the early days of Scottish and English draughts, there was not even a standard as to whether play was on dark squares or light squares.  For some reason, dark squares won out, despite being worse from a visibility standpoint.  Important distinctions in the regional variants are primarily in board size and capture rules.  We give the most widely played variants below.

Checkers vs. Chess
Checkers has an undeserved reputation as a lightweight game for children, and is used in fatuous metaphors comparing it unfavorably to chess.  Anecdotal evidence from discussion boards suggests that a possible reason so many people disparage checkers is that they are unaware of the correct rules.   Playing without mandatory captures is a very common house rule, and it is the way many people are taught to play.  But checkers simply doesn't work without mandatory capturing: the game is unwaveringly dull, and can easily turn into a completely blocked position (especially when players refuse to move from their back rank to prevent the opponent from getting a king).   (At least one online checkers app I found had forced captures turned off by default, though it can be turned on).

Played properly, in any of its major variants, checkers is a deep strategic game.  Many players who have mastered both games (Newell Banks, Irving Chernev, Emanuel Lasker, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, Alexander Kotov, Vassily Ivanchuk) hold both games in high regard (even Bobby Fischer was interested in pool checkers, and learned from the books by his friend Archie Waters).  The notable Russian chess magazine 64 for much of its history covered 8x8 Russian draughts, and later 10x10 International draughts.  In Studying Chess Made Easy, Andy Soltis suggests students play both games, as checkers helps with visualization and calculation.   Like chess, it has a long history of serious competition in several different forms, including correspondence play, and a voluminous literature (until sometime in the 20th century, its literature was even larger than chess, according to Schaeffer's One Jump Ahead).   There are also competitions in checkers played with faster time limits (e.g. 15 minutes per player per game in Rapid, 5 minutes in Blitz).   Checkers is well-suited to simultaneous exhibitions, sometimes blindfold (checkers, particularly with flying kings, might actually be harder to play blindfold than chess).  The noted chess historian Edward Winter has a fine article on some of the notables who have played both games, including Banks (the subject of a separate article) and Lasker.   Several books rightly refer to serious play as scientific checkers.

Anglo-American Checkers
The variant of the game most common in the United States (where it is called checkers) and the United Kingdom (where it is called draughts) probably has the largest literature of any form of the game (now second only to chess among board games).   It is played on the dark squares of an 8x8 checkered board, with each player starting with 12 men (generically pawns) a side, on the three ranks nearest them.   The object is to capture or block all of the opposing pieces.   The player with the darker pieces moves first.  Men move one square diagonally forward, and capture diagonally forward by jumping over an adjacent opposing piece which has a vacant square behind it.  Captures are mandatory: a player must make a capturing move if one is available, and must continue to capture with the moving piece if another capture is available from the landing square (making a series of captures of the same turn).   If more than one capturing move is available (with more than one piece, or in more than one direction), any capture (not necessarily the move that captures the most pieces) may be played.   At the end of a capture or series of captures, all of the opposing pieces which were jumped are removed.   A man which reaches the last rank (the opponent's first), by either a normal or capturing move, promotes to become a king (usually marked by placing a second piece on top of it) and the turn ends.   A king moves and captures like a man, but in any direction (backward as well as forward).   It can also make multiple captures, jumping in any direction on each jump.   A player wins when their opponent has no legal moves (usually because they have no pieces left, but occasionally when all of their remaining pieces are blocked).   Draws occur when neither player can force a win (usually due to equal material in the endgame).   The game with single step kings is also sometimes referred to as straight checkers, to distinguish from the larger family of games with flying kings. 

In most books, the first player is designated Black and the second White.  Serious players play with thick solid plain disks similar to backgammon pieces, most often red and white, and a board of green and buff (white, off-white, or cream) squares.  [Some recent books designate the first player Red instead of Black, but we will maintain the traditional terminology.]   Play is on the green squares.  Checker sets for children, at least in the United States, are usually red and black plastic disks with ridges on both sides which allow the pieces to lock together when a piece is kinged.  These are dreadful, as black checkers show up poorly on black squares.   Inexpensive combination sets with 15 red and black checkers are often sold with a folding board which has a backgammon board on the other side (and sometimes a set of chess pieces as well).   See notes below on diagrams.

Many checkers books dutifully include three or four pages on The Standard Laws (originally compiled by Andrew Anderson in 1852), which give intricate instructions on time limits, improper moves, etc., but usually leave out trivial details such as how the pieces move and capture.  A few works, such as Kear's Encyclopaedia, sensibly amend those laws to include the basic rules of play.   W.T. Call's Vocabulary of Checkers cites an incident (No man to crown with) which happened twice in 1884, where a player moved a man to the kingrow before he had lost a piece, and refused to allow a checker to be borrowed from another board (claiming a win), until the umpire intervened.   The laws as given today explicitly direct the referee to furnish a checker in this circumstance.

Anglo-American checkers can played on a 10x10 board: Zillions of Games includes 10x10 implementations with both 15 and 20 pieces per side (some online versions call these Sparse Checkers and Crowded Checkers respectively).   However, some endgames winnable on the 8x8 board are draws on the 10x10 board (e.g. three kings vs two kings in separate double corners: the corners are too far apart for the three kings to threaten both simultaneously): this is mentioned in Martin Gardner's The Last Recreations.

In recent years the game has spread even beyond its traditional centers in the English-speaking world, to countries such as Pakistan, Turkemenistan, the Ukraine, and Italy (as noted below).

Italian Checkers
A variant of Anglo-American checkers, in which kings cannot be captured by pawns.  The board is rotated so that the double corner is to each player's left.  The rules for multiple captures are complicated: if multiple captures are available with different pieces, the largest number of pieces must be captured; if equal, capture by a king must be chosen over capture by a pawn; if two kings can capture equal numbers, the one which captures more kings must be chosen; if equal, the one which captures a king earlier.  Some sources say a player who loses without a pawn being promoted loses double; this does not seem to be part of the official rules.   Ed Gilbert's Kingsrow checkers program has a version for Italian Checkers.

The Italian game is similar enough to Anglo-American checkers that several Italian players have won the world championship in the latter, in both three-move and go-as-you-please formats.

Flying King (Queen) variants
[Variants in which kings (queens) move and capture any distance along an open diagonal.]



International Draughts
The most popular form of the game worldwide is played on a 10x10 board, with 20 checkers per side on the first four ranks.   White moves first.   There are two important differences from Anglo-American checkers: plain checkers can capture diagonally backward as well as forward, and kings are flying kings: they can make non-capturing moves any number of empty squares along a diagonal (like a bishop in chess), and can capture by jumping an opposing piece any distance away and land any distance beyond, as long as they pass over only empty squares (except for the checker being captured).   Multiple captures, either by a checker or king, are also possible; when a choice of captures is available, the largest number of opposing pieces must be captured.   A checker which reaches the last rank, but which still has an available (backwards) capture, must make that capture and is not kinged; only a checker which finishes its move on the last rank is kinged.   In some books it is referred to as Polish Checkers (probably a misnomer; it did not originate in Poland) or Continental Draughts.  

A consequence of flying kings is that endgames with two kings versus one are drawn; it takes at least three and usually four kings to force the capture of a single opposing king (but see alternate demotion rules).   Despite this, the International game is much less drawish than the Anglo-American variant, and richer in tactics.

International Draughts is also played on an 8x8 board with the same rules (White moves first, checkers capture backwards, flying kings, and maximum captures) and 12 checkers per side.   This is now officially called Brazilian Draughts (older sources called it German Checkers, or Damenspiel, but German rules do not allow plain checkers to capture backwards).  A backwards capture can occur as early as Black's second move: e.g. 10-14 22-17; 11-15 17x19 (capturing 14 forward and 15 backwards).    Spanish Draughts is similar to Brazilian except that plain checkers cannot capture backwards (Spanish Draughts also rotates the board so that the double corner is to the left; Portuguese Draughts is the same as Spanish but with the double corner on the right as usual).    Spanish Draughts, as described in older books, is sometimes played with each player having one or two kings each on their king rows at the start of the game.

American Pool checkers
The official rules of American Pool do not require the maximum number of captures to be made, but a capturing piece must still continue to capture as long as captures are available.  Captured pieces are all removed at the end of the turn.   Otherwise it is the same as Brazilian Draughts.    A few older books refer to it as Minor Polish Checkers.

Russian Draughts (шашки)
This variant, dating back to 1884, is played on an 8x8 board with most of the International rules, with the following exceptions: a checker which reaches the last rank by capture becomes a king immediately and can continue to capture as a king on the same move.   Any capture, not necessarily one allowing the most pieces to be captured, may be played when multiple captures are available, but a piece which has made a capture (including a checker just kinged) must continue to capture on the same turn if a capture is available.  Russian draughts players have adapted easily to American Pool, which only lacks the continuation capture of a checker just kinged.

Russian draughts is also sometimes played on a wider 10x8 board (10 files and 8 ranks) with 15 checkers per side.   This is sometimes called Spantsireti after its inventor, Nikolai Spansireti, but is usually called 80-Squares Checkers (80-клеточные шашки).   There are a number of other variants of Russian draughts, including:
(1) Northern Checkers (Северные шашки), where a captured king is not removed, but demoted to a plain checker.
(2) Simple Checkers (Простые шашки), in which checkers do not promote (checkers cannot move once they reach the last rank, except to capture backwards).
(3) Double-Move Checkers (Двухходовые шашки), where players move twice per turn.  (It is not played in balanced doublemove fashion: White makes two moves even on their first turn).
(4) Giveaway Checkers (поддавки шашки), played with Russian rules.   It has been widely studied in Russia, and tournaments have been played since 2011.

Canadian Draughts (Grand Jeu de Dames)
International Draughts on a 12x12 board, with 30 pieces per player on their first five ranks.   Malaysian Checkers (also played in Singapore) is similar to Canadian, but plain checkers cannot capture backwards, and the huffing rule is still in effect.     In Cape Town, South Africa, a variant called Dumm is played on a 14x14 board.

Czech Checkers (Česca Dáma)
International Draughts on an 8x8 board, but plain checkers are not allowed to capture backwards (so opening theory should be similar to Anglo-American).   Played in Slovakia with only 8 plain checkers per side.

In most countries with their own regional variants, one or more of the major variants (International 10x10, Brazilian 8x8, or Anglo-American) is also played, particularly in official competitions.

Frisian Draughts
One of the most interesting regional games, played in The Netherlands for over 400 years, is played on the 10x10 board as in International draughts.  Although it is played only on the dark squares, captures can also be made orthogonally, leaping over two light squares as well as an opposing piece.  Captures by both men and kings are allowed in all eight directions.  Men move diagonally one square forward when not capturing.  Kings move as bishops in chess, and capture by long leap.  A multiple capture must capture pieces of the largest available total value (counting kings as just below 1-1/2).   If values are equal, a capture must be made by a king rather than a man.   An individual king can only make three consecutive non-capturing moves (unless a player has only kings).   The World Championship Frisian Draughts site has an excellent basic strategy manual (including openings and endgames) in five languages, rules in six languages, and additional books in Dutch.  Recently a miniature version, Frysk, with only five pieces per side, has been introduced.  Both Frisian and Frysk are featured on the LiDraughts server.

Full board Orthogonal variants
[Movement is orthogonal; every square is available]



Turkish Draughts (Dama)
The principal variant in which all 64 squares are used.   It is played in Turkey, Greece, Egypt, and the Middle East.  The first world championship was not held until 2014, though the game is far older, and likely evolved independently of the diagonal variants.   Each player has 16 pawns, placed on the second and third ranks (diagram above, although traditional boards are uncheckered).   Pawns move one square straight forward or sideways, and capture by jumping in the same manner.    A pawn which finishes its move on the last rank is kinged; a pawn which jumps to the last rank can continue with sideways capture if available (and is still kinged).   Kings (Dama) can move and capture any distance in any orthogonal direction.   Pieces in multiple captures are removed as each is jumped; this may make new captures available; reversal of direction (180 degree turn) is not permitted.   The maximum number of captures available must be made.   Like Anglo-American checkers, two kings can win against one in the endgame, and the draw rate is lower than the other major variants. { The description in The New Complete Hoyle and Goren's Hoyle is erroneous: they allow diagonal forward movement, probably confusing it with Armenian draughts, another regional variant.}  

Turkish draughts is the basis for an excellent modern variant, Give and Take, invented by Christopher Elis, described later under Modern Variants.   Two other modern variants, Croda (see Abstract Games 9) and Dameo (also in Modern Variants below), are more closely related to Armenian draughts.    Another regional variant of Turkish draughts is Keny, played in the Caucasus (Russian кавказские шашки, or Caucasian Draughts), in which pawns can capture in all four directions, as well as make non-capturing leaps over friendly pieces (as in Halma).

Variants to reduce draws
Because the Anglo-American game has a very high rate of draws among expert players, a number of variants have been devised to vary the opening play:

Eleven-Man Ballot (Newell W. Banks, 1907) -- each player removes one checker from the start, from squares chosen at random from a special deck of 8 cards.  A second card drawn by each player gives their first move to be played.   2500 distinct opening positions are possible in all; Ed Gilbert's Kingsrow program identified 247 as losses, leaving 2253 playable openings.   The Checker Maven has a good account of Gilbert's work.   Goren's Hoyle describes a more limited version, in which the two pieces removed are from corresponding positions (e.g. 6 and 27).   Other systems have also been used, including special 12-sided and 4-sided dice devised by Don Brattin, based on an idea by Bill Scott.   A detailed description of various systems for 11-man ballots is on the website of the North Carolina Checker Association.   W.R. Fraser's The Inferno of Checkers gives a few sample games, and indicates how the openings can occasionally be steered into normal three-move openings.

Contract Checkers (L.S. Stricker, 1934) [source: Goren's Hoyle; Games Digest June 1938]
Play starts with 12 checkers a side in the usual array.  There are one, two, three, or four extra checkers per side in reserve.  One checker each is added simultaneously to each side when designated pairs of back row squares are vacated (e.g., in the 13-checker variant, each player adds a reserve checker as soon as both 4 and 29 are vacant).  Talis' description in Games Digest suggests only one extra checker per side, placed simultaneously as soon as any pair of corresponding back row squares become vacant.

Two- and Three-Move Ballot -- See Appendix 1.

Balloting for opening moves is now used in international 8x8 (Brazilian draughts) tournaments, with 780 possible combinations of up to three moves per side (e.g. combination 11 XVII is a longer line in the equivalent of the American opening Gemini 2: 10-15 23-19; 11-16 19x10; 6x15 22-17).   Some of the ballots use a system called flying checkers, in which one or two pieces are moved from their opening position to a square to which they could not move normally (e.g ballot 23 IV moves a3 to d4 and h8 to h4).

King Demotion Rules
In Draughts variants with flying kings, it normally takes four kings to defeat a lone king.   (In 8x8 variants, three kings can defeat one king if the stronger side has a king on the long diagonal between the single corners, using a technique usually called a Petrov Triangle.)   An alternate rule to fix this is to require a king, when capturing an opposing king, to stop in the square immediately beyond the captured king, rather than being allowed to fly further after capturing (this is a standard rule in some regional variants like Thai Checkers).   Christian Freeling calls the game with this rule Killer Draughts.   It has the effect that two kings can win against a single king, instead of requiring three or four.  Juri Anikejev suggested a more limited rule called Modern Draughts (Killer Light) by applying the rule only after capturing a king at the end of a multiple capture sequence.   In Central-South-German Checkers (Süddeutsches Damespiel), a king must stop in the square immediately beyond the last captured piece.   See Peter Michaelsen's post for some history of these rules.

Herman Hoogland, a World Champion player from the Netherlands, borrowed a rule from Frisian Draughts to allow two kings to defeat one: a king can capture an opposing king orthogonally.  In 2020 on the BoardGameGeek forum, Michał Zapała proposed a new variant, Constitutional Draughts, in which a king making a non-capturing move could not pass through an attacked square to reach a non-attacked square (capturing moves are unaffected); this also allows two kings to defeat one (a short introduction is here).

Breakthrough
The first player to make a king wins (also called Kingscourt, not to be confused with the commercial variant King's Court described below).   This is sometimes used as a simpler variant to teach beginners the basics of strategy.   It is supported as a variant on Lidraughts, but can obviously be played with almost any variant.   Martin Fierz solved the version for 8x8 American checkers in 2006 (White has a forced win in about 31 moves).

Alternate Opening Positions

   
                                                    Diagonal Checkers

Diagonal checkers (in the 12-piece version above left) is a common variant for American checkers, and also in both Russian and German draughts.  Pawns promote to Kings in either of the two opposite double corner squares (German: a7b8 or g1h2) or any of the four edge squares farthest away (Russian: a5a7b8d8 or e1g1h2h4).   There is also a 9-piece variant (above right).


                 Parallel Checkers

Parallel Checkers (Les Dames Paralleles, ou A Sens Unique) (Joseph Boyer)
From the book by Boyer and Parton; both players move and promote in the same direction (moving up the board); Boyer does not specify which player moves first.  It can be played with any of the usual variants; the game server BrainKing implements it as One-Way Checkers, on an 8x8 board using Czech Checkers rules (no backwards captures by plain checkers).   Boyer also suggests 12x12 Canadian checkers; the starting position is more balanced when both players have the same number of checkers on their uppermost row (8x8 or 12x12).

Super-checkers (Charles Fort) c. 1930
A giant variant played with many checkers per side on a large checkered cloth.   Players were allowed to make large numbers of moves at a time at the opponent's discretion, followed by an equal number by the opponent.  The author wrote to a friend: "Super-checkers is going to be a great success.  I have met four more people who consider it preposterous."


Modern Variants

Checkers to the MAX (Stanley Druben), 1992
The board starts empty.   Players alternate either placing a new checker on a vacant square on their first three rows, or moving a checker already placed.

Coronet (Chris Huntoon), 2012
An 8x8 variant with both orthogonal and diagonal movement, with 21 pieces per side arranged in a triangle in opposite corners.   Promotion is only in the single square in the opposite corner.   Implemented in Zillions.   This article on BoardgameGeek gives a number of Huntoon's inventions.

Dameo (Christian Freeling)
An 8x8 draughts variant using the whole board, with king movement in all eight directions; developed from Croda.   Checkers can only move straight or diagonally forward, but can perform a linear jump, passing over one or more adjacent friendly checkers in any of the three directions (this is equivalent to shifting a whole row of adjacent pieces one square in the same direction, a limited version of the phalanx move in Robert Abbott's game Crossing/Epaminondas).   Kings cannot perform a linear jump, nor be jumped over.   Captures are orthogonal only, but in any direction (checkers by short leap, kings by long leap).  The tactics of the game are rich, and draws are infrequent.  Two kings can always win against one king, regardless of the position and which player is to move.  The Bibliography lists an excellent introductory book by Aleh Tapalnitski, Meet Dameo!, which is available for free download. 

Give and Take (Christopher Elis)
This is a variant of Turkish draughts with the same general rules and opening position, but there are two new rules which make the game rich in tactics.   The first new rules is that captures are only compulsory in one instance: when a piece is moved so that it can be captured, the opponent must immediately capture it, and continue to capture if possible (this is the Give and Take of the title).   A king which captures must land on a square permitting another capture if possible.   The second rule is that a pawn which is a player's only piece instantly becomes a king.   John McCallion published an account in NOST-Algia 339, and a feature article in Games Magazine (May 1999, pp. 56-57).  It was also discussed in Eteroscacco 62.

Giveaway Checkers (The Losing Game, Anticheckers, etc.)
This is the misère variant of checkers: the object is to lose all of your pieces (or have the remaining ones blocked).   This can be played with any variant of the normal game with compulsory captures.   Recreational Mathematics Magazine volume 1, number 2 (April 1961) gave a 56-move solution to a straight checkers problem (Loser's Checkers) where White (with a full set of checkers) must win by forcing a single Black king at 7 to capture all 12 men.    It was a popular game in NOST, and has been widely played in German (Schlagdame) and Russian (поддавки шашки) draughts.

The Good-for-Nothings (Les Vauriens)
V.R. Parton devised a game (first published in the book by Boyer and Parton) combining regular and giveaway checkers.  It is played like International 10x10 draughts, but the five checkers on each player's back row are replaced by Good-for-Nothings, which move and capture like normal checkers, but lose the game if forced to promote.   The goal is to lose all five of your good-for-nothings; you can also win by capturing all of your opponent's regular checkers, or by forcing an opposing good-for-nothing to reach your back row and promote.  Schmittberger describes this in New Rules for Classic Games, and suggests that it can be played on an 8x8 board as well.  ItsYourTurn implements it with American rules as Mule Checkers.

Heaven and Hell Toroidal Checkers
Frank Cunliffe sent me rules for this very interesting game from a one-page posting on a Princeton computer network written by Tobias D. Robison, who learned the game in 1958 from Joe Tamargo.   [Can anyone shed any more light on the origins of this game?]  The game starts in the normal 8x8 position, and checkers and kings move and capture as normal.  However, the board is toroidal (doughnut-shaped): the two end ranks are adjacent, as well as the leftmost and rightmost ranks.   The dark squares are referred to as Heaven, the light squares (initially all empty) as Hell.   Checkers do not promote by reaching the last rank; kings can be created only by capture.  When a piece is jumped, it is shifted horizontally (along its rank) to the jumping player's left, to the first available square of the opposite color which is either vacant or occupied by a single checker of the same color (in which case it creates a king).   A king which is jumped can only be shifted to an empty square.    If no squares are available, the jumped piece goes into Limbo (off the board and permanently out of play).  Once a player has pieces in both Heaven and Hell, they may play in either, but a capturing move must be made if available anywhere (pieces jumped in Hell shift back into Heaven).   The object is to get all of the opponent's pieces out of Heaven.  (As Robison puts it, you are simultaneously playing regular checkers in Heaven and losing checkers in Hell).    I passed the information to John McCallion, who wrote a feature article for Games World of Puzzles May 2012 (pp. 66-67), including a sample game.

Hexdame (Christian Freeling)
International Draughts on an order-5 hexagonal board, with 16 checkers per side.  Rules are given on pp. 183-184 of New Rules for Classic Games. 

Kiwi Checkers (John Bosley)
This is a variant which uses the shogi mechanism of dropping (re-entering captured pieces).  When pieces are captured, they are added to the capturing player's reserve, and can be dropped 1, 2, or 3 at a time onto vacant squares or onto friendly pieces; stacks of up to three pieces are allowed, named after birds from the inventor's native New Zealand.   Single (kiwi) and double (tui) pieces move as regular checkers; triple (moa) pieces as kings.   Checkers which reach the back rank are not kinged; they are immobile until pieces are played from the reserve to form a Moa (stack of three).    Captures are mandatory and the maximum number of captures is required.   A drop constitutes a move and is only allowed when no captures are available.   Kiwi Checkers was first published in 1990 in NOST-Algia 319, and briefly described in WGR10 in 1994 (p.29).

March Hare Checkers (Chris Huntoon), 2012
Application of V.R. Parton's March Hare Chess to 10x10 International Checkers.   After Black's first move, each move consists of moving a friendly piece followed by an opposing piece (captures mandatory as usual).   A player reduced to one or two pieces loses.  Implemented in Zillions.

Sleeping Beauty Draughts (Ralf Gering)
Published in Abstract Games 14 (Summer 2003, pp.25-26), this is a modern variant designed to make draws impossible.  Rules are as Anglo-American checkers, but men promote to ladies, which can capture either as regular kings (shortleaping), or by replacement (as the chess Fers, one square diagonally).   A player may only have one lady at a time; additional promotions are to sleeping beauties, which remain stationary (unable to capture or be captured) until a player loses their only lady, at which point a sleeping beauty can be awakened.    Full rules and five sample problems are available in the online issue.

Combinations of Chess and Checkers


                     Initial position in Cheskers

Cheskers (Solomon W. Golomb), 1947
This is a combination of chess and checkers, invented in 1947 by Solomon W. Golomb, of pentominoes fame.   The board and opening position are exactly as in checkers, except that the four first rank checkers are replaced by: a Bishop at a1/h8 (which moves exactly as in chess, capturing by replacement rather than by leaping), two Kings at c1/e1/d8/f8 (which move exactly like kings in checkers), and a Cook at g1/b8 (which moves like the Camel in chess variants, to the opposite corner of a 2x4 rectangle, capturing by replacement).  [Knights are used for the Cooks in both diagrams and play.]  The second and third-rank pieces are Pawns, which move and capture exactly as checkers; multiple captures are as usual.  If captures by Pawns and/or Kings are available, a capturing move is mandatory, but may be by Bishop or Cook if available.  Capturing by Bishop or Cook is always optional.  Pawns which reach the last rank promote to Bishop, Cook, or King.   The object is to capture all of the opponent's kings.   A stalemated player loses.   This was a popular variant game in the Knights of the Square Table.    

Chess-Draughts (Henry Richter, 1883)
Not really a checkers variant; although play is on the black squares only, capture is by replacement rather than leaping.   Each side has 6 Pawns (moving and capturing one square diagonally forward, and promoting to Knight on the last rank), one Lady (one square diagonally in any direction), and one Knight (like a bishop in chess).  The object is to capture the opposing Lady.

Commercial Variants

Blue and Gray (Henry Busch and Arthur Jaeger), 1903
Checkers variant played on the intersections of an 8x8 board (i.e. 9x9 intersections) with 17 guards and a captain on each side.  The board has a specially marked path from the starting square of both captains to the center of the board.   The object is to reach the center with the captain.  Described by Sid Sackson in A Gamut of Games.

Camelot (George S. Parker), 1930
One of the most renowned commercial variants of checkers, invented by the founder of Parker Brothers.   It originally appeared as Chivalry in 1887, then as Camelot in 1930.   It is played on a vaguely octagonal board of 160 squares (12 wide and 16 deep, with the first three ranks at each end reduced to 2, 8, and 10 squares), with ten men and four knights per side.   There are several different kinds of moves, some of them similar to Halma.   It was briefly republished in 1985 as Inside Moves, without the medieval imagery.   Other variants have been published by Parker Brothers, and unofficial variants have also appeared.  Wikipedia has a good description, including a sample game from the 2009 world championship.   There is also a World Camelot Federation.  

King's Court (Christopher Wroth), 1986
Checkers variant on an 8x8 diamond-shaped board, which starts full except for the 4x4 central area.  Pieces move and jump as kings, and can also jump friendly pieces without capturing.   Each player moves one piece into the central area: the first player to eliminate all of the opponent's central pieces wins.

Quick Checkers (Amerigames International), 1998
A commercial 6x6 version (6 pieces per side) designed to teach children how to play.   The other side of the board has a standard 8x8 board.

Multiplayer Variants
Three- and four-handed versions of checkers (with each player moving in a different direction) are too numerous to mention them all (similar chess variants have existed for a century or more).   A number of examples can be found in Boyer and Parton's book, including triangular and hexagonal boards.   A three-handed game on a triangular board, called Draughts For Three, was patented in 1888 by John Hyde (see Provenzo, Play It Again, in the Abstract Bibliography); a different scheme, Trangle Checkers, was published in 1897 by Warren Morris Babbitt (see the Bibliography below).  Four-handed commercial examples include George V. de Lery's Fourplay Checkers (Deroma, 1939), on a 6x6 board with four 2x6 wings added and only six checkers per side (mentioned in Wiswell and Hopper's Checker Kings in Action), Robert King's Intense Checkers (1991), on an 8x8 board with four 3x8 wings added, and Elmer C. Pearson's Fourhanded Checkers (1974), on an 11x11 board with corner squares removed, and 9 checkers per side.   Three-handed versions include Megacheckers (MegaGames), for three players on an oddly-shaped board with 12 checkers per side, En Garde (Mynd Games, Northern Games, 1986), on a nine-sided board, and Yorel Game Company's Treckers (1981), on a hexagonal board for 2 or 3 players, with five levels of play.   Board Game Geek has details on many other commercial checkers variants.

Distant relatives of checkers
To keep this guide to a reasonable size, I have omitted several families of games:
(1) Games where captured pieces are absorbed into a stack, such as the traditional Russian game Bashni (Columns), and its later offshoots like Emmanuel Lasker's Laska, and Christian Freeling's hexagonal variant Emergo.  Winning Moves' King Me includes a variant called Stack'Em Checkers in the same family.   David Pritchard, in both The Family Book of Games and Five Minute Games, mentions Alvin Paster's game of Pasta, which combines Laska and Checkers.   There are also games where jumped pieces are flipped as in Reversi.   The New Complete Hoyle describes a variant called Stack-Up Checkers (credited to Mark Eudey and Stillman Drake).
(2) Games in which there is no capturing (Halma and its relatives like Chinese Checkers, and checkerboard variants such as Pyramid Checkers), where the object is to move all of your checkers into the opponent's starting area.     
(3) Games of the Fox and Geese and Tafl families, which have unbalanced forces and different goals, and in which neither side, or sometimes only one side, can capture.

Konane (Hawaiian Checkers)
A Hawaiian game with 32 pieces per player, which fill the entire board in alternation (that is, black pieces start on what would be the black squares and vice versa, though the board is uncheckered and traditionally consists of pits dug into a stone board, with white pieces of coral and black pieces of lava).   Two adjacent pieces, usually near the center, are removed.  Not really a checkers variant, since pieces can't make non-capturing moves: captures are mandatory and orthogonal only; multiple captures are not mandatory and are allowed in only one direction per turn.   The last person able to make a capture wins.


Notation and Diagrams
In traditional Anglo-American notation, the playable squares are numbered from 1-32, starting at the upper left corner from the first player's viewpoint.   Black moves first from the top half of the board.  Moves are designated by the starting and finishing square separated by dashes (11-15) or spaces in older books (11 15); sometimes captures are noted by x or : (11-15 22-18 15x22).  Some older books (e.g. Anderson, Baker, Kear) which present moves in vertical columns may have dashes (sometimes long) in Black's moves and spaces (or double dots) in White's, to make the pairs of moves easier to see.  International Draughts also uses numerical notation with the numbers 1-50 (x for captures), with White moving first from the bottom half of the board.   Standard algebraic notation is used in Russian and Turkish Draughts (necessary in Turkish, since all 64 squares are used).   Portable Draughts Notation is a text-based notation which is both human and machine readable, and has options for many different variants.    It supports annotations as well as information on when and where and by whom a game was played, and uses traditional numeric notation with x for captures.   It was devised by Adrian Millett (based on the existing Portable Games Notation) for his programs Sage and Dynamo, and has been adopted by many other draughts programs.


                   Numbered Board for 8x8 checkers

Diagrams
Although play is on the darker squares, printed diagrams in monochrome are usually made with reversed colors, so the pieces are shown on white squares, with the unused squares in gray.  Monochrome diagrams printed with the pieces on dark squares are often nightmarishly unreadable: below are diagrams from two different books by the same author, Andrew J. Banks.   The left diagram is from Pictorial Guide to Checkers; the right is from Checker Board Strategy.   Despite being here reduced 50% relative to the first diagram, the second is much sharper and clearer.   In electronic publishing (like this booklet), quality diagrams can be published in full color with pieces on the green squares.




Software

Aurora Borealis Draughts by Alexander Svinn
A powerful and flexible program with options for 14 variants (all of the major variants, even Turkish and Frisian).

CheckerBoard by Martin Fierz
A very versatile program with its own strong playing engine (called Cake), opening book, endgame databases, fine graphics, and facilities for reading and saving games in PDN and positions in FEN formats.   It also acts as an interface to other programs like Kingsrow.

Chinook by Jonathan Schaeffer et al.
At one time the strongest 8x8 checkers program, which won or drew several matches against top players.  Even early versions were notable for large endgame databases.  In 2007 it proved that go-as-you-please Anglo-American 8x8 checkers is a draw with best play, by selectively solving enough openings to show that Black could at least draw with 9-13 regardless of White's reply, and White had at least one reply to each Black opening that would at least draw.  By 2009 Chinook had proven 28 of the three-move openings were drawn, notably the White Doctor (first to be proved), Double Cross, Octopus, Tyne, Skull Cracker, Single Corner, and Black Widow (the last one solved, which completed the proof for the whole game).  The latest version can be played over the web; the website has more details about Chinook, and its endgame databases can be downloaded.   Schaeffer's book One Jump Ahead has even more detail.   Today, however, Kingsrow and Cake are regarded as the strongest programs.

Colossus Draughts by Martin Bryant
A very strong program which won a human tournament in England in 1990, and later that year defeated an early version of Chinook to win the 2nd Computer Olympiad.  Colossus was the first program with a large opening book (including original research, correcting published play).   Bryant later joined the development team for Chinook.

Dalmax Checkers
Android application with customizable rules, with presets for 12 different variants.   I have not seen this.

Kingsrow by Ed Gilbert
Powerful modern program able to play Anglo-American, International, and Italian checkers.   It includes large databases of both openings and endgames.   One of the most interesting pages on the site is an analysis of every possible four- and five-move sequence: Kingsrow assesses 542 out of 794 four-move sequences and 1364 out of 2700 five-move sequences as drawable.   This includes odd sequences like the Charleston line 9-14 21-17 14x21 22-18 5-9?, where Black's poor third move is the only one which allows White to draw what is usually a lost opening (White must then play 18-15* to set up the two-for one capture 11x18 23x5).   Kingsrow's opening book is self-generated, and contains many strong lines which have not appeared in published play.    Another valuable page is a description of conclusive results on particular lines in some well-known openings.

Nemesis by Murray Cash
Strongest program in the world in 2002; included an 8-piece endgame database.   Enhancement of Cash's earlier program Nexus.   Many analysts in the early 2000's relied on it to check the strength of various lines, as Kingsrow is used today.

Online Draughts Diagram Maker
Many of the diagrams in this booklet were made with this web-based package, which is easy to use and has a large variety of options.  It also has modules for chess and fairy chess diagrams.

Sage and Dynamo by Adrian Millett
Sage is a program to play 8x8 Anglo-American checkers; Dynamo Draughts plays 10x10 International draughts.   Millett developed Portable Draughts Notation, and is also a noted chess programmer.

Straight Checkers Gold by Al Lyman
Checkers tutorial program formerly available at www.checkerworld.com.   There is a short description on the Checker Maven.

Wyllie Draughts by Roberto Waldteufel
Strong program of the early 2000's, including a 7-piece database.  It won a practice match against Alex Moiseyev in 2002 with 16 wins, 3 losses, and 49 draws.  See Moiseyev's Sixth for details.

Zillions of Games
A versatile software package for Windows, able to play an enormous range of board games, particularly chess and checker variants and other abstracts, with a programmable system.    The standard package has 19 variants of checkers built in; the website contains hundreds of games programmed by users.

Modern programs for playing checkers (as well as other abstract board games like chess and reversi) generally have three main parts:
(1) An opening book, consisting of thousands of opening variations in a tree structure, with evaluations
(2) A middlegame engine, which searches the game tree of a position as deeply as possible.  Ideally it wants to reach an endgame position with a favorable (known) result; if not, it must evaluate each position numerically to select the best line of play.
(3) An endgame database, containing millions of positions, evaluated as wins, draws, or losses, with a method for navigating the database to reach the best result possible (a win if one is available; a draw otherwise if possible; otherwise the hardest possible win for the opponent).   There are at least 3 types, in increasing order of storage and I/O requirements:
(a) WDL (Win-Draw-Loss) -- gives only the result for each position.  This can lead to missed wins in complex endgames like Strickland's Position, by repeating king walk moves without making any progress.
(b) DTC (Distance to Conversion) -- gives the number of moves before an irreversible move is played.  This can fix the problems caused by WDL databases, but has its own flaws.
(c) Perfect Play -- gives the correct next move in each position.  Ed Trice and Gil Dodgen computed the first 7-piece Perfect Play database for checkers, part of their program World Championship Checkers Gold.   This guarantees the shortest solution, but not always one human players can follow.

Bibliography

Most of this bibliography covers Anglo-American checkers, and nearly all of the books listed are in English (there are numerous books in Russian, Dutch, and French on other variants of checkers).   It is nearly impossible, and certainly impractical, to try and list every book and magazine devoted to checkers.   The largest collection of checkers books is probably the John Caldwell/Irving Windt Checker Books Collection, assembled by Don Deweber, which is now located at the Loras College Library in Dubuque, Iowa.   It has well over 7000 books, pamphlets, and magazines.  I have tried to identify the most important and frequently cited books, particularly those considered standards in the field, and everything I can find by the most important and prolific authors such as Boland, Ryan, and Wiswell.   General books on games with sections on checkers are omitted, with a few exceptions.  Nowadays there are several very poor self-published books by non-experts (either print-on-demand or in Kindle format), which are not listed here.

Many of the works listed here are in my own collection.   As usual, pictures of the cover indicate books which are highly recommended.   Basic bibliographic information on other books has been gathered from a variety of sources, including Call's The Literature of Checkers, Google Books, WorldCat, HathiTrust, the Library of Congress; bookdealers (Bookfinder, Amazon, Biblio, ABEBooks, Alibris, and eBay), and from online reviews on Checker Maven and Start Checkers.  Many books are available online: some for download, others for online reading only.  

Bulletin of the Brooklyn Public Library
  The 1922 edition, available at Google Books, includes a three-part listing of checkers books (October-December 1922).   This includes quite a few books published after Call (see below).

Call, William Timothy -- The Literature of Checkers, 1908, Call, New York, 72 pp., $1.00
  Bibliography of 227 books and magazines in chronological order from 1756 (Payne) to 1908, with index.

Lovell, Kenneth -- Draughts Books of the 20th Century, 1990, Damier Books, 91 pp., spiralbound, ISBN 095154330X
  Published in a limited edition of 100 copies; out of print and very rare.  The author compiled it to update Call's The Literature of Checkers.   The book contains 451 entries, of which I have only seen a few.  Some book dealers give reference numbers from Call and Lovell in their listings.

There are quite a few books entitled The Game of Draughts, with a subtitle giving more specific information (such as the name of an opening).

Anglo-American Checkers (Draughts)
  
Introductory Works

Atwell, Richard  -- Scientific Draughts, 1905, J.A. Kear Jr., Bristol, 186 pp., hardback
  Atwell was columnist for the London Daily News, and co-edited the original version of Kear's Encyclopaedia (two parts of which had already been published).  The first part of this remarkable book is a series of short essays on various topics, including perhaps the first discussion of Three-Move Ballot Restriction: "After all unsound openings have been eliminated, it will be found that there are 218 absolutely sound Openings, containing treasures compared with which all present published play pales into insignificance."   Atwell is counting in an odd way, not counting exchanges as part of the three moves (so he counts 11-15 24-19 15x24 28x19 7-11 as three moves), and eliminating certain types of moves now understood to be playable (such as 11-15 22-17 10-14, forcing an exchange from 7).  Atwell gives a complicated nomenclature for the two-move openings, using Switcher for 21-17, Choice for 22-17, Single for 22-18, Cross for 23-18, Regular for 23-19,  Double for 24-29, and Side for 24-20, but also using Repeat for imitated moves (10-14 23-19 he terms Denny-Repeat), Exchange for replies which force a capture (11-16 23-19 is Bristol Exchange), and Gambit for the two 21-17 replies which give up a piece (9-14 21-17 is Double Corner Gambit).   A dozen playable gambits (giving up a piece for a positional advantage) are listed on page 31.   The middle part of the book gives 46 endings and over 250 additional problems, with solutions.  The section of Brilliant Games contains 100 games (many of them composed) with a diagrammed middle game position from each, presented as a problem (also with solutions); some of these are well-known traps.   A bibliography lists over 230 publications, giving the author or title, city, and year of publication.  

Boland, Ben -- Checkers For The Millions, 1939, Boland, Brooklyn, 36 pp., paperback
  Basic lessons in the Dyke formation, traps and shots, and endgames.   Republished two years later as The Game of Checkers (see A.J. Mantell below).

Call, William Timothy -- Ellsworth's Checker Book, 1899, Call, Brooklyn, 65pp.
  Guide to openings and 11 basic positions, from an unpublished manuscript by Charles Ellsworth.   Some of the positions are deeply analyzed, with tables of variations similar to those used for openings.  The last section of the book is a long essay by Call on the relative merits of chess and checkers.

Chernev, Irving -- The Compleat Draughts Player, 1981, Oxford University Press, 314 pp., paperback, ISBN 978-0192175878
  Guide for beginning and intermediate players, covering most aspects of the game (except for two- and three-move restriction), with hundreds of diagrams (readable although the publishers chose to print with the pieces on dark squares).   Chapter 6, Logical Draughts, Move by Move, plays through two illustrative games with annotations of every move.  Chapter 12, 100 Traps in the Opening, has examples from almost every traditional opening.   There are dozens of annotated games and problems, biographies of some notable players, history, and a short bibliography.   Surprisingly uncommon and expensive for a comparatively recent book.

Grover, Kenneth M., and Tom Wiswell -- Let's Play Checkers, 1940, David McKay, 1972, Tartan, 188 pp., paperback
  Good introductory book.   The game section, by Grover, recommends that beginning players play the Cross opening as White against 11-15, and the Double Corner 9-14 as Black.   The section on mid-game structures covers some opening traps and basic landings.  There is a section on basic endings and king endings, and a selection of 100 problems.

Held, Lawrence -- Held's Guide to the Game of Checkers, 1935, David McKay, 104 pp., hardback
  Beginner's guide, but with little instruction on general tactics except a brief description of The Move.  Example games are given in the go-as-you-please openings, with some variations and light annotation for what he calls the 25 Standard Openings.  For the 16 Secondary Openings (including the 27-20 Second Double Corner and the 26-17 Single Corner) he gives only a sample game.  The middle section includes history, tournament formats, a brief description of Spanish Pool (Polish Draughts on the 8x8 board), and some tricks and puzzles.  The last major section is a collection of 100 problems with solutions.   The bibliography on the last page is only a listing of books, reiterating the section on Advanced Study on p. 61.   On p. 58 he mentions Four-Move Restriction as "being discussed".  He calls Eleven Man Ballot "Not checkers in the accepted term".

Hill, James -- Hill's Pocket Manual, n.d., David McKay, 64 pp., paperback
  Beginner's book with endgame positions, opening traps, annotated games, and problems.            

Hopper, Millard -- An Invitation to Checkers, 1940, Simon and Schuster, 190 pp., hardback, $2.50
  Excellent introductory book covering tactics, openings, and endgames.   Also in paperback as How To Play Winning Checkers, 1943, Pocket Books.
Hopper, Millard -- Win At Checkers, 1941, A.S. Barnes, 1956, Dover, 109 pp., paperback, ISBN 0-486-20363-8, $2.50
  Very elementary book in question-and-answer format.   On page 58 he oversimplifies the openings by recommending 22-18 as White's reply to nearly every Black opening except 11-15.
Hopper, Millard F. -- The Major Tactics of Checkers, 1934, New York, 32 pp.
  Booklet based on a series of lectures given by Hopper on radio station WNYC.   Covers openings (including what Hopper calls the Forcing System), problems, and sample games.   Diagrams are given only on the last page, which presents 10 problems.

Jordan, Bill -- How to Play Better Checkers: Applying Chess to Checkers, 2022, Jordan, 62 pp., paperback, $11.99
  Print-on-demand booklet by a (chess) Federation Master and noted writer on chess, looking at checkers from a chess-player's viewpoint (he uses algebraic notation, and even chess kings in the diagrams).  Superficial coverage of basic tactical elements, an unnecessarily long endgame with two kings vs. one, and one poorly played example game.

Landry, T.A., and L. Stephens -- Draughts, An Introduction to Championship Play, 1984, London Draughts Association, ISBN 0-9509762-0-2

MacIntyre, Charles Coughlin -- Million Moves of Checkers, Your Study Guide To Scientific Play, 2023, 279 pp., paperback, ISBN 979-8376864920, $15.95
   Print-on-demand book by a Canadian enthusiast.   The publication date says 2023, but it was assembled over decades: the section on openings only covers the 137 pre-170 openings; elsewhere he refers to Ron King as the current World Champion, which places it no later than 2014.   Poorly organized: no index or real table of contents, badly printed diagrams, and quite a few typos and other minor errors (e.g. page 68 and 149 are the same; part of the opening table on p. 25 is misaligned, making the names and moves match up incorrectly).   Still worthwhile, with useful information on tactics, endgames, and openings.   Many anecdotes about players both famous and not, and a listing of 70 books and magazines.

Mantell, A.J. -- The Game of Checkers, Learn To Play Expertly In Four Easy Lessons, 1941, Padell, 34pp., cardboard cover
   One bookdealer listing has Boland as co-author, but my copy does not show this.   Mantell bought the publishing rights to Checkers for the Millions from Boland.   There are errors in placement of the arrows on the diagrams on page 16.

Mitchell, David A. -- Checkers, 1918, Penn, Philadelphia, 183pp., hardback
  General strategy, openings and traps, endgames (including Tregaskis' Draw), a selection of Brilliant Games, and a selection of problems with solutions.

Patterson, W. -- How To Play Checkers, 1927, Haldeman-Julius, 64pp. paperback
   Number 1183 in the famous series of Little Blue Books.   Not dated, but 1182 and 1184 both appeared in 1927.   Elementary instruction: the author recommends a very limited opening repertoire, and only the Old Fourteenth and Single Corner are covered in any detail.   None of the other six Black opening moves are even mentioned.   The last 13 pages give 54 lines of the Old Fourteenth and 63 lines of the Single Corner, in tiny type, using the Alexandrian System (each variation in one column).   The author says not moving any of 1/2/3/6/7/10 in the opening will produce a good game for Black (and 23/26/27/30/31/32 for White): this is sometimes called the D'Orio triangle, but isn't considered a sound principle in general.  Call lists several works from the 1870's by W. Patterson; possibly this is the same author and one of the same books (the page count of The Game of Draughts matches this book).

Payne, William -- An Introduction to the Game of Draughts, 1756, 67 pp.
  The first book on draughts in English.  50 games with no annotation except footnotes indicating a losing move (modern practice reverses this, using an asterisk (star move) to denote the only move to win or hold a draw).   Includes six critical draws, eight critical wins, and 24 strokes.   No diagrams except for a numbered board.  Among the openings which appear are Single Corner, Old Fourteenth, Cross, Will o' the Wisp, Black Doctor, and White Doctor. Game number 1 shows the famous Goose Walk trap in the Single Corner opening.

People's Journal -- The People's Draughts Book, n.d., People's Journal, 40 pp.,
  Elementary handbook assembled from articles in the Scottish weekly newspaper The People's Journal, with elementary positions, games in the standard openings, and opening traps.

Phillips, Barnet (The "Major") -- The Checker Primer, 1887, Excelsior, New York, 24 pp., $0.10
  Very elementary guide, including basic rules, 13 critical positions (without solutions), and five sample games and variations from Sturges.  Briefly mentions Polish draughts (wrongly stating that one queen can always draw against three) and the Losing Game.   The word checkers only appears in the title of the book and as a subtitle on the first page; everywhere else the term draughts is used.

Reinfeld, Fred -- How To Win At Checkers, 1957, Sterling, 1967, Wilshire, 186 pp., paperback, $2.00
   Solid introductory book by a writer best known for chess books.   Republished under different titles, including How To Play Top-Notch Checkers, but to my knowledge this is Reinfeld's only book on checkers.

Reisman, Arthur -- Checkers Made Easy -- 1959, Key Publishing, New York, 107 pp., paperback
   Regarded as one of the best introductory books; recommended by Pask in Book 4 of Complete Checkers: Insights (p. 327) as the first book to read for beginners.
 
Ryan, William F. -- It's Your Move: A New Guide to the Game of Checkers, 1929, David McKay, 115 pp.
  Early book by the future U.S. Champion.   50 problems with solutions, and a section on two-move restriction, with sample games for most of the openings (Ryan uses compound names).
                                                                                                                                
Ryan, William F. -- Scientific Checkers Made Easy, Revised Edition, 1934, 1945, 1950, John C. Winston, 205 pp., hardback
  About half the book presents example games with analysis; the remainder consists of problems, starting with what Ryan calls the Ten Major Positions (starting with the standard four, and ending with a three kings vs. two endgame).   Diagrams printed in black and red.

Smith, Erroll A. -- The American Checker Player's Handbook, 1926, 1931, John C. Winston, 160 pp., hardback
  Elementary guide with opening analysis, including the four barred openings (over 20 pages on the Barred Dundee), transpositions, the Move, and standard positions.   Diagrams in red and black.   Available at Google Books, but the PDF is missing the two-page index (viewable at Internet Archive).

Spayth, Henry -- Checkers for Beginners, Revised Edition, 1927, Regan, 86 pp., paperback
  The Move, Critical positions, names of the openings, and sample games.

Spayth, Henry -- The American Draught Player, 6th edition, 1860, Dick & Fitzgerald, New York, 308 pp., hardback
  Noted early American guide, including 17 openings and 1465 variations, 21 endgames and 56 variations, and 78 critical positions.   The Theory of the Move and Its Changes describes opposition in detail, with ten diagrammed examples.

Sturges, Joshua -- Guide To The Game of Draughts, With Critical Situations, 1800, 53pp.
  Collection of 54 games and 140 critical positions, expanding on the work of Payne.  The Old Fourteenth opening is named after its appearance as game number 14 in both Payne and Sturges, although those books both give the move order 11-15 22-17; 8-11 17-13; 4-8 23-19.   In 1808 Sturges published a collection of problems, mostly from the 1800 edition, with full diagrams printed in black and red, and expanded solutions.   Sturges's guide was revised and expanded many times, notably by:
(1) George Walker in 1835, 87 pages, with 69 games and 150 positions; this was reprinted in Bohn's 1850 Handbook of Games.
(2) R. Martin in 1858, about 106 pp., with similar contents to Walker, plus a short section on 10x10 Polish Draughts with two sample games, and a brief outline of the Losing Game.  This was the first American edition, and the first to give an index of opening names.    Some of the games are still being presented with White moving first: Game 68, a Second Double Corner, starts 22-18 9-14 18-9 5-14 instead of 11-15 24-19 15-24 28-19.
(3) Julian Darragh Janvier in 1881, 152 pages, with 20 games showing 20 openings, and 172 critical positions, plus corrections to earlier editions and other sources; the section on Polish and Losing Draughts is omitted.    This is much better organized than earlier editions: Janvier has converted all of the games to Black moving first, labeled them with opening names, and sorted them neatly into separate columns for each variation, with sources for each line.   He uses * to denote improved moves, not necessarily star moves as understood today.
(4) J.A. Kear in 1895, 268pp., by which time it contained example games for 27 different openings with 1466 variations, and over 200 positions with solutions.   Kear also includes short appendices giving the rules for five regional variants (Turkish, Spanish, Polish, German, and Italian); these were expanded in the 1904 edition.    Kear was co-author of the Encyclopaedia of Draughts (see below in Openings); again, I don't know why Kear spent time doing a second revision of Sturges in 1904 when he had already published two parts of the Encyclopaedia).

Sweet, I.D.J. -- The Elements of Draughts, or Beginners' Sure Guide, 1859, 1872, De Witt, New York, 108pp.
  Early American book by the draughts editor of the New York Clipper, the first U.S. newspaper to feature a checkers column.  Elementary guide with the basics of endgames, openings, "the move" (on which the author spends 17 pages, without a single diagram), and a collection of sample games.

Trott, George E., ed. by E.C. Whiting -- The Clapham Common Draughts Book, 1947 (unpub.), 1966, 1973 (English Draughts Association), 2014 (PDF), 57 pp.
   Beginner's guide to tactics, with emphasis on visualizing them in play.   Electronic reproduction (63 pp.) with corrections and full-color diagrams by Mel Tungate.

Walker, Walton W. -- "Inside" Checkers, 1922, David McKay, Philadephia, 203 pp.
  29 games and 36 problems, annotated almost move by move.  Many traps are described.

      

Tom Wiswell was a champion player, noted problemist, and prolific, best-selling author.   He gave the 11-15 opening the name Old Faithful in Learn Checkers Fast.

Wiswell, Tom -- Learn Checkers Fast, 1946, David McKay, 1972, Tartan, 208 pp., paperback, $1.95
   Good beginner's guide, including a section on the most common openings, ratings for all 137 three-move ballots (including example lines for the most critical ones), traps, problems, basic endgames (The Golden Dozen [not the formerly barred openings]), and a detailed glossary.  Available at the Internet Archive.

Wiswell, Tom -- Checkers In Ten Lessons, 1953, 1959, A.S. Barnes, 126 pp., hardback, $2.95
   Lesson 2, Standard Openings and Games, was written with the assistance of Marion Tinsley, widely regarded as the greatest player of all time.   Includes a useful bibliography.  Oddly, Lesson 4, Charting Your Course, the section on two-move openings, refers to the 11-16 opening move as Paisley, using Bristol as the specific term for 11-16 24-20 (modern usage, including Lesson 2 of the same book, calls all of the 11-16 openings Bristol).    Reprinted in 1971 by Wilshire as Checkers Made Easy.    Portions were also reprinted as part of a combination book in 1953, Championship Chess and Checkers For All, by Wiswell and Larry Evans.

Wiswell, Tom -- The Complete Guide To Checkers, 1960, 1970, Collier, 128 pp., paperback, $1.95
  Originally Secrets of Checkerboard Strategy.  After showing the basic 3x2 and 4x3 king endings, Wiswell gives fifty problems (about two-thirds by him).  The game section starts with a chart of all 49 two-move openings (he comments that he sometimes plays the Charleston, 21-17 against 9-14 or 10-14, as a handicap against weaker players).   45 sample games with notes and variations are presented, with every two-move opening except the four he considered losses (the two Charleston openings, and 23-19 against 11-16 or 12-16).   The final section of the book is a ten page glossary, which includes a complete listing of the 142 three-move ballots permitted at the time, indicating that 13 favor Black and 88 White, with 41 balanced.

Wiswell, Tom, and Jules Leopold -- The Wonderful World of Checkers and Draughts, 1981, A.S. Barnes, 176 pp., paperback, ISBN 978-0498022586
  The first section consists of short chapters (one or two pages) on important topics such as The Move, The Dog Hole, Corners and Dyke Squares, and basics of openings and endings.  The remainder of the book consists of 50 problems, mostly composed, followed by 50 problems from actual games (the moves leading to each position are included, and these problems are in order of openings, from 9-13 22-18 to 12-16 24-19.   Full solutions are given as usual.  The only negative is that the book appears to have been published and printed on the cheap: there are only three diagrams in the first section; positions are given by listing the squares with pieces/kings, and must be set up on a numbered board.  The pages are large, but the margins are much larger and the print smaller than necessary.  Leopold wrote the puzzle and game section of Yank, the Army magazine, during World War 2, and wrote a book in 1943 called At Ease!, which includes a short section on checkers.

History and Biography

A glaring omission in the literature of checkers is a biographical dictionary (Who's Who in Checkers?): biographical information is scattered through hundreds of books.   Stearns' The Draughts Marvel, below, is the closest we have, but over a century out of date, as are Call's Literature and Vocabulary, which help a little too.  Wyllie Draughts has decent biographies of more than 20 famous players, which only scratches the surface.  Another set of 35 (mostly very skimpy) biographies is at Chinook's website.    For chess, Jeremy Gaige's 1987 Chess Personalia is the closest, but has very limited information on each player.  Several of the chess encyclopedias cover the major players at least.  Wikipedia has biographies of nearly every important chess player and writer, but only a relatively small number of checkers and draughts players (also skimpy).   All of the checker lists skew heavily toward players, and neglect authors (e.g. Kear, Boland, Wiswell) and other important contributors such as analysts and problemists.   [There is apparently an Encyclopedia of Checkers by Anthony Bishop with many photos and biographies, which I have not seen.]

Call, William Timothy -- Vocabulary of Checkers, 1909, 201pp., $2.00
  Detailed encyclopedia of terms used in checkers, including names of openings (some of which have faded from use).   One of the most useful books ever written on checkers, containing a wealth of historical information.  But it's a century out of date, and nothing like it has been written since (Wiswell has a solid 10 pages in The Complete Guide to Checkers).

Stearns, Lyman Marshall -- The Draughts Marvel and Twentieth Century Checker Compendium, 1909, Draughts Marvel, Manchester, NH, 154pp.
   Anthology of sketches of dozens of notable players of the day, with photographs, problems, and games.  Stearns was the champion of New Hampshire, and editor of The Checker World magazine.   Like many books of the era, it was paid for ahead of time by subscribers (well over 200 for this book).  The Library of Congress has scanned one of their copies, numbered 302.

Advanced strategy

Banks, Andrew J. -- Pictorial Guide to Checkers, 1940, David McKay, 244 pp., hardback
  Detailed guide to strategy, including dozens of key positions and tactical themes, and openings.   The opening section is a collection of very short essays on many aspects of checkers.   17 illustrative games are annotated in detail with instructions for the beginner.    There are 555 diagrams: the author calls them photographic illustrations, but they are unfortunately small and ugly, with plain pieces represented by single dots and kings by double dots.   (Surprising, considering how good the diagrams are in his problem collection Checker Board Strategy.)   The author notes in his discussion of books that the Library of Congress held 86 books on checkers in 1938.

Banks, Newell Williams -- Banks' Scientific Checkers, 1929, Morris-Systems, 201 pp.
  Detailed textbook by a world champion player.  Contains sections on Visualization (Banks was one of the greatest blindfold players ever), and on Banks' own invention of Eleven-Man Ballot (including his eight game match with Asa Long, which Banks won with a win and seven draws).  The game section includes examples from all 47 playable two-move openings.

Oldbury, Derek  -- Move Over, 1957, 2001, 68 pp., digital
  Brilliant, idiosyncratic book by the former World Champion.  Oldbury uses his own notation based on the diagonals of the board, but there are no annotated games, just analysis of 71 positions.   Beautifully typeset in 2001 by Mathias Kegelmann, and available at Bob Newell's Checker Maven site.  Richard Pask and Richard White published a supplement in 2005 (also available at The Checker Maven), with commentary, and solutions to the 22 problems at the end of Oldbury's book.

Pask, Richard -- Complete Checkers: Insights, 2nd edition, 2024, Avi Gobbler, Honolulu, 614 pp., paperback, ISBN 978-1542464369, $24.99
  One-volume compilation of Pask's five volume series Logical Checkers (Checkers for the Novice; Checkers for the Freestyle Expert; Checkers for the Two-Move Expert; Checkers for the Three-Move Expert (Balanced Ballots; Unbalanced Ballots)).   Available at the Checker Maven.

Endgames and Problems

Banks, Andrew J. -- Checker Board Strategy, n.d., 159 pp.
  My copy is a paperback reprint.   Except for a short section giving sample games in the traditional openings, the book is a collection of middlegame and endgame problems.   Excellent diagrams.



Ben Boland was a renowned endgame specialist as well as a problemist.  Marion Tinsley considered Boland the best writer on checkers.  

Boland, Ben -- Familiar Themes in the Scientific Game of Checkers, 1938, Boland, Brooklyn, 59 pp., paperback
  Boland's first book, regarded by some as his best.  A very detailed catalog of endgame positions, annotated with references to published play and examples from actual games.   Most of the positions have four pieces or fewer for each player, and each theme is illustrated by multiple examples to help the reader understand the concept, rather than just memorizing positions and lines of play.   Over 150 diagrams.
Boland, Ben -- Famous Positions, 2nd edition, 1940, 1965, Boland, Brooklyn, 204 pp.
  Large collection of problems, both standard endgames and positions from games, annotated in detail.
Boland, Ben -- Masterpieces in the Game of Checkers, 1947, Boland, Brooklyn, 208 pp.
  Viewable online.  Collection of endgame problems, sorted into families of related problems.
Boland, Ben -- Corrections to Boland's Works, 1950, Boland, Brooklyn, manuscript, 45 pp.
Boland, Ben -- Bridges in the Game of Checkers, 1954, Boland, Brooklyn, 208 pp.
  Definitive work on bridge positions in checkers, with classification into 11 families, illustrated by games and problems.  
Boland, Ben -- Border Classics, 1957, Boland, Brooklyn, 112 pp.
  Endgame positions where some pieces are pinned on the sides of the board, divided into 16 classes, with detailed annotation.
Boland, Ben -- Checkers in Depth, 1974, Boland, Brooklyn, paperback, 200 pp.

Call, William Timothy -- Midget Problems, All the Ideas in Positions of 2 vs. 2 Pieces in Checkers, 1913, Call, Brooklyn, 72pp., $0.50
  Early attempt to analyze and categorize endgame positions with 2 pieces per side.  The author looked at around a thousand positions from the literature.
 
Duffy, Joe Mexo -- Duffy's standard positions, showing the proper method of handling endings, 2 volumes, 1934, Duffy, Chicago, 1937, C.N. Caspar
  Recommended by Pask in Book 4 of Complete Checkers: Insights.   Extremely rare.   Volume 1 is a detailed examination of First through Fourth Position.   Volume 2 covers Fifth and a variety of other positions.   There are 228 diagrammed positions combined, with references and detailed analysis.

Gould, Joseph -- Gould's Problems, Critical Positions, and Games, Third Edition, 1895, 382 pp., hardback
  Enormous collection of problems from various authors, including W.J. Wray's Bridge Position Problems.   Along with Lyman, the most important problem collections until the works of Ben Boland.

Hall, L.L. -- Hall's Instructive Positions, 1962, Hall-Martin, Los Angeles, 129 pp., hardback
  Over 150 problems, some composed (ranging from 2x2 to 5x5), others from actual play, with full solutions (except for the cover problem).

Lyman, Henry Darius -- The Game of Draughts With Selected Problems, Richardson, Worcester, 1881, 421 pp., hardback
  A small collection of games sorted by opening., followed by over a thousand problems with solutions, from well over 200 composers.    Includes 16 ornamental problems (under Curiosities), where the pieces are arranged in geometric shapes or other interesting configurations, plus eight problems by Thomas Dale in Giveaway Checkers.

Pike, Robert -- 101 Checker Puzzles, Official American Mensa Game Book, 2000, Sterling, 141 pp., wirebound, ISBN 0-8069-6080-9, $7.95
  Problems from opening to endgame, with diagrams and full solutions.   None of the problems are credited.

Salot, Bill -- Slocum Strokes, 2011, Salot, 490 pp., PDF
  Collection of over 100 problems by George H. Slocum, with annotations (including similar positions) and references.   Valuable information by Slocum and other notables on techniques of composing checkers problems.  Assembled by Slocum with help from "a Coterie of Checker Problemists and Bibliophiles".   Professionally typeset, with diagrams from the CheckerBoard program.  Available on Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

Wiswell, Tom -- The Science of Checkers and Draughts, 1973, A.S. Barnes, 136pp., 173 pp., hardback, ISBN 0-498-01600-5, $5.95
  Primarily a collection of problems by the author and 28 other noted problem composers: the main section is titled 101 End-game and Mid-game Problems.   Internet Archive has the large-print edition which can be read online.

Wood, W.J. -- Draughts: Practical, Scientific Instruction on the Theory of the Move and its Practice, 1916, Waukegan Gazette, Illinois, 94 pp., hardback, $0.50
   Despite its title, there is no explanation of the Move.  A collection of 138 problems, some with only partial solutions: "the solutions were left off where the win is in plain sight."   Wood was the editor of the checker department which appeared on Saturdays in the Waukegan Daily and Weekly Gazette.

Collections of Games

Carson, Benjamin -- Eight National Tourney of The American Checker Association, 1934, Teetzel, 156 pp., hardback
  Edwin F. Hunt won the first national tournament played with the 138 three-move openings (see the notes on the Nutcracker below).   The book includes 225 annotated games with an index by openings.   Also includes photographs and biographies of many of the players.   Unlike the glossy National Tourney books of the pre-Depression, this is printed on cheaper pulp paper.   Future World Champion Walter Hellman (spelled here as Hallman) was the youngest player in the tournament at 18.

Chamblee, Maurice -- Checkers and the Experts, 1949, Chamblee, 63 pp., paperback
  A detailed section on openings, including a history of restriction, and an assessment of all 137 three-move ballots.   The remainder of the book contains all 30 games of the 1947 U.S. Junior Title match, won by Marion Tinsley over Chamblee, 3 wins to 2 with 25 draws.   Each game is annotated by either one of the two players, or one of a group of 12 renowned players and analysts, including Banks, Fortman, and Wiswell.

Dunne, Frank -- Draughts Praxis, or Modern Match Games, 5th edition, revised, 1911?, David McKay, Philadelphia, 259pp., hardback
  Collection of matches and tournaments played between 1901 and 1903, with annotations and a catalog of opening variations.   (See Other Variants below for an earlier book by Dunne).

Finley, John G., ed. -- Sixth American Checker Tourney, 1925, Morris-Systems, Detroit, MI, 294 pp., hardback, $3.00
  Full account of the 1924 Championship won by Samuel Gonotsky.  361 annotated games with index of openings (using compound names, with Regular for Black's 11-15 and Choice for White's 22-17 reply).   The tournament was played under two-move restriction including the four barred openings, all of which were played multiple times.   Photographs and biographies of all of the players (including a teenaged Willie Ryan) are included.   Nicely printed, like Teetzel's two years earlier.

Fraser, William R. -- The Inferno of Checkers, 1959, 2021, ed. and pub. L.L. Hall, 212pp., typewritten, hardback
   Fraser walks the prospective student through what he calls the heaven of go-as-you-please, the purgatory of two-move restriction, and the hell of three-move restriction and eleven-man ballot, with 68 analyzed games.  Only a small number of two-move openings and 42 three-move openings are covered.   Available from Coachwhip as an inexpensive e-book in EPUB format, good except for a botched table of contents.

Gonotsky, Samuel -- The Game of Checkers, A Record of the Thirty-Game Match Between Samuel Gonotsky and Louis Ginsberg, 1925, Wendemuth, 50 pp.
  Gonotsky won the 1925 match with 2 wins and 28 draws; the games are annotated by him.
 
Gould, Joseph, and others -- The Game of Draughts, Historic and Memorable Matches..., 1898, 311 pp., hardback
  Collection of 19th century games from various matches; very little annotation.



Moiseyev, Alex -- Sixth, Volume 1: The Way to the Crown, 2006, Torsing Plus, Kharkiv, 375pp., hardback, ISBN 966404-175-0
  Moiseyev became a grandmaster in both Russian and International draughts before switching to American checkers in 1996.   The title is a reference to Moiseyev being the sixth person to hold the championship of three-move restriction checkers (starting with Asa Long in 1934, who was succeeded by Hellman, Tinsley, Oldbury, and King).  The book contains all of Moiseyev's games from his successful world championship matches against Ron King and Elbert Lowder, plus 50 of his games from other events.  All of the games are superbly annotated with references to published play, and in some cases private analysis: Moiseyev is very generous in giving credit to others.  Many of the games are supplemented by other games with the same opening, and there is an index of three-move ballots.   There is also plenty of information on endgames.  By luck I bought the last copy of a limited run of 500, directly from the author.

Ryan, William F., ed. Leonard L. Hall -- Big League Checkers, 1961, Hall, Los Angeles, 197 pp., hardback
  Annotated games from three of Ryan's matches.   Part Three also contains Corrections and Improvements to the second edition of Ryan's Modern Encyclopedia, edited by by Frank Warren from Ryan's manuscript.

Smith, Erroll A. -- Checker Classics, 1922, Stewart Kidd, Cincinnati, 165pp.
  Collection of annotated games.

Teetzel, M.D. -- Fifth American Checker Tourney, 1923, E.H. Greene, Hannibal, MO, 398 pp., hardback
  439 annotated games from the 1922 American Checker Championship in Boston, won by 18-year-old Asa Long, who lost only one game (to third-place finished Louis Ginsberg).    The tournament was conducted under two-move restriction with 43 openings (the 1924 championship added the four barred openings; see Finley's book above), which are indexed.  Nicely printed on glossy paper.

Wiswell, Tom, and Millard Hopper -- Checker Kings in Action, 1952, David McKay, 160 pp., hardback, $2.75
   Collection of annotated games from the Wiswell-Hopper 1951 world championship match in go-as-you-please.  Avalable at Internet Archive.

Wiswell, Tom, and Robert L. Shuffett, M.D. -- America's Best Checkers, 1957, David McKay, New York, 177pp., hardback
  112 games from world championship matches in three-move restriction, annotated by a variety of expert players and analysts.  Includes an index of openings and biographies of the players and authors.    Hassell Street Books made a photographic reprint in 2021 (ISBN 9781013957574).

Chapters in Hoyles and other Compendia

Most games compendia are not worth listing here, as their sections on checkers or draughts give little more than the rules to a few variants, and perhaps very elementary strategy that can be found in any beginner's book.

Cady, Alice Howard -- Checkers, Spalding Home Library, Vol. 1 Num. 9, 1896, American Sports Publishing, New York, 57 pp.
  Elementary survey of checkers, with history, openings, and endgames.   I suspect this of being the source for the misstatement on the Second Double Corner in the New Complete Hoyle.  There is a section on the Losing Game with a sample game and a few problems.  The second half of the book covers Polish, Spanish, Italian, and Turkish Draughts, with openings, problems, and sample games (most of this comes from Dunne's 1890 Guide and Companion).   Cady wrote a series of books on various games, including backgammon, patience, dice and dominoes, and various card games including patience.

Morehead, Albert H., Richard L. Frey, and Geoffrey Mott-Smith -- The New Complete Hoyle, 1947, 1956, 1964, Garden City, New York, 740 pp., hardback
   Checkers (Draughts) is covered from pages 616-640: mostly the Anglo-American version, with a survey of basic strategy, trunks for the 47 playable two-move openings (which contain several typos), and five annotated games, including an example of three-move restriction.   A handful of variants (including Giveaway) are described.  The section on National Variants gives rules for five variants, but the terminology (e.g. Polish Draughts) is out of date, there is no mention of Pool Checkers or Russian Draughts, and the rules for German and Turkish Draughts are wrong.   The brief introductory section gets two names wrong, giving William Prynne for William Payne, and James Pillsbury for Harry Nelson Pillsbury.  See the historical notes on the Second Double Corner for another odd mistake.  [The 1991 edition, The New Complete Hoyle Revised, cut out the illustrative games and the variants other than the national ones, and failed to correct any of the cited mistakes, which have been there at least since 1956.]

Openings

Anglo-American Checkers
Appendix 1 gives an outline of the openings in Anglo-American checkers.

Go-as-you-please
Anderson, Andrew -- Anderson's Guide to the Game of Draughts, 1848, Lanark, 73 pp.
  Anderson's first edition is a collection of 55 games, with footnotes to alternate lines of play, with a result given for each line (draw or Black or White win).  There is one page of seven Critical Positions; there are no diagrams except a numbered board on page 6.   Some of the games are presented with White moving first, not unusual for the time.   A few opening names are listed at the bottoms of pages.  A relatively unimportant work compared to his groundbreaking Second Edition...

Anderson, Andrew -- The Game of Draughts Simplified, Second Edition, 1852, Glasgow, 154 pp.
  The author notes "... it may be looked on rather as a new work than a new edition."    This was the first publication of the Standard Laws, drawn up by Anderson after consulting with a number of clubs and leading players, and still mostly in force.  Anderson recommends using red and white pieces for better visibility.   A trunk game is given for each of fifteen openings, for which he lists names and their origins.  These are all still in use, although Bristol is now used to refer to all 11-16 openings, and Suter is now usually spelled Souter.   The book builds on the work of Payne, Sturges, Hay, and Sinclair, with more than 20 other credited contributors.   He credits James Neilson with the idea of presenting every branch line in a separate column, which became standard in later books.  The book closes with a long explanation of The Theory of The Move by John Paterson.  Anderson's book was revised several times, notably by Robert McCulloch in 1878 and Julian Darragh Janvier in 1881.   (It's not clear to me why Janvier did separate revisions of both Anderson and Sturges, instead of combining them into one volume.)

Denvir, John T. -- Traps and Shots, 1905, Chicago, 116 pp.
  228 examples of opening traps and shots in the midgame and endgame.   Portions appeared in 1904 in pamphlet form.   Along with Ryan, the most notable such collection.   Rare and out of print; a reprint from around 1980 is also out of print.

Drummond, John -- The Scottish Draught Player, 1838, Drummond, Falkirk, 66 pp., hardback
  Subtitled "The Theory and Practice of That Scientific Game, Familiarly Illustrated According to the Latest and Most Approved Mode...".  49 games with over 700 variations, including corrections of Sturges' first edition.   Black is at the top, but moving second according to Scottish custom at the time, so the moves are 33-complements (22-18 instead of 11-15).  None of the openings are named. 
Drummond, John -- The Scottish Draught Player, 2nd edition, 1851, 1853, Drummond, Glasgow, 108 pp., hardback
  Expansion of the first volume, with 1730 variations on fifteen openings.  The Cross, Fife, Glasgow, and Kelso are named here for the first time.   Other names did not catch on (Stirling for Maid of the Mill, Provost for Will o' the Wisp, Joe's Game for Edinburgh).  
Drummond, John -- The Scottish Draught Player, 3rd edition, 1861, Drummond, Glasgow, 70 pp., hardback
  New volume with many new openings; the Alma was named here for the first time, along with no less than ten variations of the Single Corner which Drummond gave (mostly) female names, including celebrities such as Jenny Lind.   Few of these caught on, though Fortman mentions Lucy Long.
Drummond, John -- The Scottish Draught Player, 4th edition, 2 volumes, 1866, Drummond, Glasgow, 80 pp. each, hardback
  Two new volumes with more whimsical names for Single Corner variations, and two extra names for Old Fourteenth lines (Old Thirty-Ninth and Old Forty-First), by analogy for the numbers of their games in Payne and Sturges.   New names still in use are Denny (for 10-14, named after the Scottish town he lived in for most of his life), Flora Temple, Nailor, and Wagram.
Drummond, John -- The Scottish Draught Player, 2nd edition, 1853, J.A. Kear, Bristol, 300 pp., hardback
   Kear's reprint, dated 1895, of Drummond's Second, one of four volumes (actually five books) of opening analysis.  This was revised and corrected by James Lees. This volume includes trunk games in 18 openings, with a total of 2390 variations.  It has nearly three times the page count of the original, as there is a tiny diagram at the top of each column giving the position at the start of each variation, with five columns per page.  There is also a section with 151 positions taken from the games, with solutions.   Call's Literature of Checkers has more details on the various editions of Drummond, one of the most important 19th-century analysts.

Hay, William -- The Draught Player, in Four Parts, 1838, 1862, Edinburgh, 36 pp.
  Subtitled "containing upwards of five thousand variations, with critical situations, and instructions for playing the game, including its laws, and the theory of the move, practically demonstrated".  The first part of the 1862 edition (given as 1842 in Roman numerals on the title page), 20 pages with 1575 variations of four trunk games, is viewable online at Google Books.   He refers to the Single Corner opening as Bannockburn, and variations of the Souter as Pioneer (unrelated to the modern Pioneer), The Needle, and The Shuttle.   See the notes on the Souter for details.  All of his games have Red moving first (from the 32 end of the board) and 33-complement moves.

Hill, James -- Hill's Synopsis of Draughts Openings, Fifth Edition, 1890, 1894, 1908, Warne, 49 pp., hardback
   58 annotated games sorted by opening.   Available at Internet Archive.

Jensen, Anker -- Forced Checkers, 1921, Courtney, Los Angeles, 219pp., $2.00
  Selection of openings and problems, leaning towards forcing lines to limit the opponent's options, to reduce the amount of memorization needed.

Ketchum, P.H. -- Checkers, The Handy Manual, 1923, Ketchum, Milwaukee, 48 pp., paperback
   Games, with variations and analysis, for all of the traditional openings.    The last two pages include some puzzles in what is essentially peg solitaire.   Available at Internet Archive.

Lees, James -- Lees' Guide to the Game of Draughts or Checkers, 1893, New Edition Revised and Enlarged by J.W. Dawson, 1915, David McKay, Philadelphia, 208 pp., hardback, $0.75
   One of the most important opening compilations of the late 19th century: 40 games in all of the traditional openings, with detailed annotations and variations.  It went through numerous revisions: the Ninth Edition Improved of 1907/1909 (Frederick Warne, New York) included three pages showing how the new two-move openings transposed into traditional openings.   I have two editions: an undated edition (from 1915 according to the Library of Congress), and a much longer (271 pp.) tenth edition expanded by John Gregg, published in 1931 by David McKay (the appendix has many corrections to play).

Livermore, S.T. -- Checkers Improved; The New Board, 1888, Cazse, Lockwood & Brainard, Hartford, 71 pp.
  Standard collection of games and variations, mainly to promote Livermore's uncheckered board, consisting of numbered dots connected by grid lines (an orthogonal board turned 45 degrees).  The same idea can be seen in Golomb's article on Cheskers, and dates back at least to J.G. Lallement in 1802 (see Call's Vocabulary of Checkers; Call also did his own version called the Roundsquare board).   Livermore added dozens of fanciful new names for opening variations, which did not catch on.

Robertson, John -- Guide to the Game of Draughts, 1888, Dick & Fitzgerald, New York, 308 pp., hardback
  Opening guide with over 3000 variations.

Root, Stephen E. -- From Novice To Expert, 1897, Root, 22 pp.
  Tabulation of opening names (a few of which have faded from use), with six moves given for about 45 openings.

Ryan, William F. -- Tricks, Traps & Shots of the Checkerboard, 1950, David McKay, 151 pp.
  Collection of checker traps, mostly illustrated by games, sorted by openings. 

Scattergood, D. -- The Game of Draughts or Checkers, 1859, A.L. Magilton, Philadelphia, 1864, Dick & Fitzgerald, New York, unnumbered, about 32pp.
  Analysis of many of the standard openings, and 12 critical positions.  Oddly includes a game with the Edinburgh opening, but completely omits Denny and Dundee: "The opening moves, 10,14 and 12,16 are not noticed in this work, as they are regarded as weak."   [Nowadays Edinburgh is understood to be the weakest first move for Black.   This was the first book to use the name Edinburgh for 9-13, although it was so named by Julian Janvier according to Call's Vocabulary.]

Various Authors -- The British Draughts Player, 1883, 1896, 1900, 1906, 418 pp., hardback
   Articles on various openings, with annotated games.  William Strickland wrote the first articles in 1883 for the Leeds Mercury, covering the traditional openings Old Fourteenth, Single Corner, Ayrshire Lassie, Laird and Lady, and Souter.  Other authors including Tescheleit added many other openings.   The Third Edition includes a brief description of two-move restriction, merely showing how the two-move ballots can transpose into standard openings.

Wendemuth, Frank R. -- Wendemuth's Checker Companion, 1922, 168 pp., hardback
   Wendemuth was a champion player in Illinois, and edited the checker column in the Chicago Daily News.   He eventually became a publisher of checkers books.  This introductory guide opens with a lecture on checkers and its history by Harvey L. Hopkins.   The next part of the book consists of some basic problems and endgames, then a section of annotated games (the first few explain the purposes of many of the moves, useful for a beginner), including some opening traps (one of these was the Steel Stroke, a win in 1905 by Robert Stewart against Ajeeb, the fake chess and checkers automaton, which had a human player concealed inside).   Ralph D. Banks gives sample games in the four two-move barred openings (9-14/10-14 23-18, and 11-16/12-16 23-19).   P.H. Ketchum later gives analysis of the 12-16 23-19 opening, believing it to be a loss for White (this was proved correct in 2007 by Chinook).  Wendemuth himself gives original analysis of 9-13 22-18 11-16, believing it to be a loss for Black (this proved incorrect; the opening became known as the Wilderness 1 (a difficult draw) and was added to three-move restriction in 2003.)  The book concludes with a collection of 139 problems and solutions.

The Two-Move Era

Denvir, John T. -- Denvir's Guide to Checkers, Third Edition, 1934, Denvir, 272 pp.
   82 annotated games, sorted by openings, with hundreds of variations.   Denvir was a prolific author and publisher, and his work is still cited today.  This book is mostly devoted to go-as-you-please and two-move openings; his 1936 guide (below under Three-Move Compilations) covers three-move openings, but with many references back to this book.

 

Kear, James A., and Richard Atwell; revised by John Alexander -- The Encyclopaedia of Draughts, 7 volumes, 4th Edition, 1901-1950, Kear, Bristol, 512 pp., hardback
   Detailed guide to all 47 playable two-move openings.  The original seven volumes were published between 1901 and 1915, and revised several times thereafter.  Usually referred to as Kear's Encyclopaedia in the literature (James A. Kear Sr. was co-author of the original editions.  His son was publisher of later editions).  Out of print and fairly expensive.   The 4th edition (1949/1950) is viewable online at Internet Archive.   The openings are given in reverse order for Black (12-16 first, 9-13 last, looking left-to-right from Black's viewpoint), and numbered sequentially to page 452.   A separate section, The Study of Problems, includes 186 problems (including the standard ones) with solutions, divided into endings, devices, sacrifices, and strokes, running 52 pages.   An 8-page supplement has additions and corrections, and an index of openings.  The Laws of the Game are revised from Anderson's 1952 edition, actually describing how the pieces move, capture, and promote.   Probably the best book on checkers at the time of its publication.  An underrated virtue of the book is a running head printed at the top of most pages, showing what opening is covered, making it easy to leaf through and find a two-move opening (compare to the useless ones in Fortman and Pask).

Shearer, Henry F. -- The Modern Draughts Handbook, 1912, John Leng, Dundee, 271 pp., hardback
  Compilation of two-move openings.   Section 1 is compiled from a large correspondence tournament in Great Britain, run by Shearer, between 1907 and 1911, and sorted by openings (11-15 23-19 was deliberately omitted, probably due to overfamiliarity).   There is also a collection of 72 endgames from the tournament.  Section 2 is an analysis of the 47 two-move openings (excluding 9-14/10-14 21-17, but including the other four barred openings).  In this book, Shearer says the Edinburgh Single (9-13 22-18 11-15) "only admits of the narrowest of draws"; he changed his view in his 1914 booklet (see below).

Tescheleit, M. Francis -- Master Play of the Draught Board, 1926-1933, E. Marlborough, London, 484 pp.
   Rare six volume series on openings: 1: Edinburgh, 2: Double Corner and Double Corner Dyke, 3: Denny, 4: Kelso, 5: Black Dyke, Boston, Douglas, Maid of the Mill, Pioneer, White Dyke and Switcher, 6: Single Corner.  The page numbers are numbered sequentially through the six volumes.  The moves are presented in columns; Tescheleit frequently uses X as a space-saving shorthand to indicate one or more pairs of forced exchanges.   This series was well-regarded in its day, although it covers less than half of the 11-15 repertoire and none of the Bristol and Dundee openings.  Volume 6 was completed by J. M. Dallas.

Three-Move Compilations

Case, Basil -- Three-Move Checkers, My Best, 1954, C.C.C Publishing, Los Angeles, c. 116pp., spiralbound
  Covers 27 of the 3-move openings, with corrections and improvements to published play.   Viewable online.   His ballot numbers don't match the current system.   This is an expansion and update of analysis by Case which appeared in Hall's Three-Move Manuscript.

Churchill, Ernest R, C.O. Skaar, and Herbert Richter -- Churchill's Compilations, 1962-1986, mimeographed pages
  Ambitious attempt to collect all published play on the openings, published in monthly installments in unbound pages.  Lovell's entry says there were 322 main installments through the completion of 12-16 in August 1981, running over 2400 pages; the index alone runs 200 pages.   [Nowadays one would compile these in an electronic database.]

Denvir, John T. -- Denvir's Three Move Guide to Checkers, 1936, 162pp., 2011, Coachwhip, ISBN 978-1616461027
  Supplement to Denvir's earlier work, covering the three-move openings.   Terribly disorganized, with the openings not listed in numerical order; the index at the beginning (at least in the electronic version) is missing almost all of the 11-16 openings.   Many of the three-move openings point back to the older book, but analysis is given for two of the barred openings (now called Inferno and Wilderness 1).  An 11-page appendix gives dozens of corrections, but these are not in order either.   Coachwhip's 2011 reprint is still available, but it would have been better to edit the book, put everything in order, and incorporate the corrections.  [If I were taking on the project, I would combine both books.]

Hester, Gordon -- Transposition Studies in 3-Move Checkers, n.d., 31pp., paperback
   41 positions and 113 annotated games, which can be reached from multiple openings (with index of openings).

Hall, L.L. -- Hall's Three-Move Manuscript, L.L. Hall, 1948, about 80 pp., hardcover
  Covers all 137 three-move openings of the time. "Containing 50 "Cooks" and Corrections By Basil Case and Other Works on the Three-Move Openings."

Hall, L.L., ed. -- The Nineteenth American Checker Tourney, 1956, Hall, 324 pp., typewritten, hardback
   Games from the 1954 tournament, won by Marion Tinsley without losing a single game.   The book is actually presented as a three-move guide, as the games are sorted by openings, with annotations and variations from other games, and analysis by Hall, Richard Fortman, and other experts, of the 22 openings which were not balloted.

Hanson, Jesse B. -- Three Move Checker Chart, 1941, Hanson, pamphlet, 11pp.

Miller, William M. -- Miller's Three Move Checker Chart: A Synopsis of the 137 Three-Move Openings, 1946, Rex B. Wood, Gary, Indiana, 142 pp., hardback
  Frankly disappointing.  One page for each ballot, with 7-10 variations for each, and cross-references on transpositions.  No evaluations are given; most lines end with a bibliographic note referencing more than 20 other works, which is not very useful without a large library.  Miller uses *, contrary to most modern practice, "to indicate the better move, not necessarily the only move."

Reisman, Arthur -- Championship Checkers, The Pioneer System, Second Edition, 1942, American Photographic, Boston, 130 pp., hardback, $1.50
   Opening system which can be reached, by transposition, from almost a quarter of the 137 three-move ballots of that era.   Originally published in manuscript form by the author in 1936.   Also called How To Win At Checkers.

Ryan, William F. -- Championship Checkers Simplified, 1937, 2nd edition 1951, Kenmore
  Some history, followed by a detailed guide to the Ayrshire Lassie, Dodger (named by Ryan for his friend Sam Schiller), and Defiance openings.   The second edition is viewable at Internet Archive.

Ryan, William F. -- The Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers, 1940, Ryan, 195pp., 1943, American Checkerist, 236 pp., hardback
  The first edition starts with an interesting autobiographical section (My Checkered Career), and closes with a selection of problems (especially featuring Tom Wiswell and Milton Johnson).  The bulk of the book is analysis of 11 three-move openings, starting with the Octopus, which was named by Ryan (32 variations, covering 27 pages!).    The 1943 second edition replaces My Checkered Career with Ryan's fable about himself (Temoc the Titan: Ryan was nicknamed the Bronx Comet), and drops the problem section.   But the opening section is more than twice as long, and covers 18 (mostly difficult) three-move ballots, including the Edinburgh Single, Dreaded Edinburgh, Heebie-Jeebies, Tyne, and Ryan's Cross.   He also gives the name Oliver's Twister to 11-16 21-17 8-11, after analyst Oliver J. Mauro (ACF applies the name to the four-move sequence with 17-14).   Later corrections to the 2nd edition appeared as Part Three of Big League Checkers.

Stiles, John B. -- The Expert's Manuscript, Times Publishing (J. Hall Thompson), Minneapolis, MN, 1938, 1940, 62 pp.
  Oft-cited work covering all of the three-move openings, mostly typewritten.   The first two sections (11-15 and 11-16) were updated several times therafter, including a version called Stiles' Improved Manuscript in 1943.    In the interim Stiles published a much more detailed guide to the 12-16 openings (see Individual Openings below).

Walker, L.D. -- Checkers Three Move Guide and Chart, a Compilation of Checker Games Selected From Thirty-Two Sources, 1958, Walker, 55pp., spiralbound, cardboard cover and pages
  Commentary on all 137 three-move openings, with one trunk for each, and notes on transpositions.   A silly flaw is that each opening is a single column of moves, but split between two pages, which are on opposite sides of the same sheet instead of being on facing pages.   Each opening is described briefly by an expert (among them Banks, Fortman, Ryan, and Wiswell), and given a rating from 1 to 3 stars favoring either Black or White.

Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number One, May 1934, Wood, Gary, Indiana, 26 pp., paperback, $0.50
Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number Two, August 1934, Wood, 26 pp., paperback, $0.50
Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number Three, November 1934, Wood, 26pp., paperback, $0.50
Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number Four, March 1935, Wood, 27 pp., paperback, $0.50
Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number Five, June 1935, Wood, 22 pp., paperback, $0.50
Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number Six, September 1935, Wood, 49 pp., paperback, $0.50
Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number Seven, January 1936, Wood, 50 pp., paperback, $0.50
Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number Eight, April 1936, Wood, 54  pp., paperback, $0.50
Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number Nine, October 1936, Wood, 54 pp., paperback, $0.50
Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number One, 9-13 Openings, 2nd ed., August 1938, Wood, Gary, Indiana, 50 pp., paperback, $0.50
Wood, Rex B. -- Wood's Checker Studies, Number Two, 9-14 Openings, 2nd ed., September 1939, Wood, 106 pp., paperback, $0.50

  Nine-volume series with analysis of all of the three-move openings as of 1939.   The first eight volumes roughly correspond to the openings from each of the seven opening moves (except that 10-15 is split between numbers four and five, and 11-15 appears as number eight).   Later volumes also included corrections from earlier ones; numbers one and two were later revised, cutting material on 11-15 openings from the original number one (this was moved to number eight).   Number nine included new play on two 9-13 openings (A4E and A4I) and the traditional 11-15 openings.

Modern works
Cayton, Dennis -- A Compilation of the Barred Openings, 1996, 1997
   Analysis of a number of three-move openings, some of which may be losses for Black.   Most of them were tested in the ACF's Star Wars postal tournament, and analyzed by expert players (especially Cayton, Al Lyman, and Brian Hinkle) and computers, including Chinook.  Seven had already been approved for postal play, and were added to the standard three-move deck in 2003.   This was groundbreaking work when it was published, though the volatile nature of many of these openings inevitably led to later improvements (see Pask's The Golden Dozen and Complete Checkers: Repertoire below).  It covers all of the 2003 additions except Denny Dodger, Garter Snake, and the three Wilderness openings.   It also has analysis of some openings which proved untenable, including the Shark, Cheetah, Rattlesnake, Nutcracker, and Barred Dundee.



Fortman, Richard L. -- Basic Checkers: The First Twenty Moves, 1978-1983, 2010, CreateSpace, 504 pp., paperback, ISBN 978-1453619698, $30.00
  Single volume edition of Fortman's seven part series on the seven opening moves.   Comprehensive work covering the 144 three-move openings as of 1994; deeply annotated; no diagrams.  Used as a guide for creating the opening book of early versions of Chinook.   Not as comprehensive or up-to-date as Pask's Repertoire, but explains the ideas behind the moves, has more historical content, and is more fun to read.   Any serious player needs both Fortman and Pask.   Jim Loy published corrections in 2010 (see below).

Loy, Jim -- Basic Checkers, Part 8, Corrections, 2010, Loy, 95 pp., PDF
  Electronic version of Jim Loy's corrections to Fortman's Basic Checkers.  Includes possible refutations of the Kentucky Glasgow and Old Paraffin openings, though Kingsrow's opening book seems to find both openings sound.

Loy, Jim -- Transpositions, 2003, Loy, 46 pp., PDF
  Compilation of 34 important landings which can be reached from multiple three-move ballots, and a list of transpositions between different ballot openings.



Pask, Richard -- Complete Checkers: Repertoire, 2nd edition, 2024, Avi Gobbler, Honolulu, 458 pp., paperback, ISBN 978-883954518-2, $24.99
   Now widely considered the definitive guide to three-move openings, covering all 156 ballots in detail.   It is the most accurate opening book ever, because lines have been checked by powerful modern computer programs like Chinook and Kingsrow.  Originally published in seven volumes as 21st Century Checkers.  There is a numbered diagram or two for almost every ballot, showing an important position.  Among its features is a postscript called Rambles with the 4th move, which covers White second moves suggested by Kingsrow which are probably sound, but not yet in the standard repertoire of published play (many of these transpose into known lines).   There is also a list of 53 plausible moves which definitely lose, with winning lines against them (useful for avoiding traps).   Repertoire does not explain the concepts behind the moves: those are covered in Pask's Complete Checkers: Insights, an excellent companion volume.

  If there is one flaw, it is in the organization of variations: it can be hard sometimes to keep track of long alternate lines in parentheses.  Italicizing branch lines in a note would probably help, but arguably any variation more than a few moves ought to be separated out.  As a random example, Variation 30 of Ballot 64 which analyzes 6-9, has a parenthetical analysis of 6-10 which runs over 10 lines (containing two more subvariations in nested parentheses), and would be clearer as Variation 31.   Fortman does this less often, and never adds parenthetical comments in his trunk lines.   It would also be clearer to me if all the variations for a moves were listed together in parentheses, rather than propagating them from one variation to another (e.g. Ballot 90 gives alternates to 17-14 in varations 6, 7, 8, and 15).   Fortman doesn't mind breaking off subvariations and even subsubvariations to make the structure easier to follow.  Finally, the constant [R]'s give the text a cluttered look; isn't everything in the trunk other than forced moves a recommended move?   If necessary, an exclamation point or even boldface could emphasize highly recommended moves.

Pask, Richard -- The Golden Dozen, The Twelve New Ballots, 2005, Checkered Thinking, 55 pp., ISBN 1-872796-22-2
  Analysis of the 12 three-move openings which were added in 2003 to the ACF's list of playable openings.   Obviously most of the analysis was incorporated into Complete Checkers: Repertoire, but the brief commentaries (including the names of the openings) were not.

Pask, Richard -- Key Landings, 1990, Checkered Thinking, 49 pp., ISBN 1-872796-00-1
  Volume 3 of Total Checkers covers 25 landings (key positions in the late opening or early midgame, each of which can be reached from a variety of openings).   Some landings are balanced, other favor either Black or White.    Many can later develop into other landings.  

Pask, Richard -- Key Openings, 1999, Checkered Thinking, 90pp., ISBN 1-872796-15X
  Condensed guide to openings, starting with GAYP and continuing through two- and three-move ballots.  Includes indexes of landings and transpositions.

Reno, Carl W. -- The Work of the Pentium, Creating New Lines of G.A.Y.P. Play, Reno, n.d., about 115pp., paperback, plastic bound
  Analysis of many openings by computer (Checkers 3.0, Colossus, and Sage), cited in a number of references.   Plain typewritten manuscript, very light print, with no diagrams.  The author warns that many lines are computer generated and have not been tested in play.  Over 300 principal lines, plus annotated variations, and references to games and published play.  Very rare nowadays: it is not listed on Amazon, Google Books, Library of Congress, or Worldcat.    I managed to obtain a copy of the 1st edition from eBay; there is a second edition (2008) with corrections and new material.

Individual Openings
Openings in draughts were already being analyzed in detail by the late 19th century (see Riley below for an extreme case).   Older opening compilations (into the early 20th century) use a system of presentation with each individual line of play given in a numbered vertical column, with branch lines indicated by footnotes giving the number of the column where a branch line continues.  (In the Alexandrian system, dots extend to variations on the same or a facing page.)    A short branch line may appear in the same column if there is room, but frequently a branch line may appear dozens of pages later.   Each line of play may be from an actual game, or published analysis of likely lines of play.  The bottom of each column usually has an actual or predicted game result (Black wins, Draw, or White win), and a source reference to the analyst (or book) who first published a variation, or the players involved if it came from a game).

Atkinson, Matthew -- White and Coloured Doctors, 1892, Bristol, 48 pp.
  743 variations and 12 positions of the White Doctor and a slight variation, named the Coloured Doctor by Atkinson.   Rare.

Baker, E.T., rev. James P. Reed -- The Game of Draughts, The Alma Opening, 1888, 74pp.
  431 lines of the Alma opening (11-15 23-19; 8-11 22-17; 3-8) with some additional variations.

Boland, Ben -- White and Black Doctors, 1984, Boland, 112 pp., hardback
  Boland's only book on opening analysis.  I have not seen this, and it appears to be his rarest.

Bowen, Roland Edwin -- Cross Opening, 1878, Worcester, 196pp.
  1001 lines of the 11-15 23-18 Cross opening.  The pages from 197-220 are blank except for ruled columns, presumably to allow the reader to add notes by hand on alternate lines.  Page 179 includes some transpositions to lines of the Cross from other openings.    The last section includes 13 endgame positions with solutions.   Bowen draws on the major sources up to that time: Payne, Sturges, Sinclair, Hay, Drummond, Anderson, and Spayth, and more than 60 other contributors.

Bowen, Roland Edwin -- Checkers, The Author's Bristol, 1886, 1889, M.F. Clouser, Worcester, 44 pp., hardback
  Subtitled "A Combined Analysis of the Play of All the Authors, from 1756 to 1880 on 24-20, 24-19 and 22-18 Lines".   Rarer than Bowen's other two compilations.  The 1889 reprint is part four of a larger work covering 2608 variations, itself volume 2 of a series called Bowen's Authors (see Call's Literature for more details).

Bowen, Roland Edwin, M.F. Clouser, ed. -- Fife Opening, 1886, Clouser, Philadelphia, 65pp. plus blanks
  Similar to his book on the Cross; 600 opening lines.

Call, William Timothy -- Rambles with the Switcher, 1916, 73pp., $0.50
  Historical view and analysis of the 11-15 21-17 9-13 opening, compiled from the existing literature.   At the end he gives nine different landings the opening may reasonably be played into.

Cantor, Conrad -- The Kentucky Glasgow, 1957, L.L. Hall, Los Angeles, 40pp., paperback
  Analysis of the Kentucky Glasgow defense (see the historical notes below).  The booklet is undated, but Lovell gives it as 1957.   Also covers what he calls the Glasgow Refused, claiming Black wins after 11-15 23-19; 8-11 22-17; 11-16 26-23; 15-18! (or 11-16 27-23; 16-20!).

Clow, Albert E. -- Winning Checkers, Part One (Black Wins), n.d., 64 pp, L.L. Hall, paperback
Clow, Albert E. -- Winning Checkers, Part Two (White Wins), n.d., 49 pp., L.L Hall, paperback
  Each volume contains variations from the Bristol opening 11-16 (11-16 24-20 in Part Two).  Part One gives 159 variations showing wins by Black, Part Two 235 variations with White wins.   Both parts have guides showing transpositions from other openings.

Courtney, William M. -- Alma, A Permissive Opening Formed By : 11-15, 23-19, 8-11, 22-17, 3-8; 1938, Courtney, Long Beach, CA, 68 pp., paperback
Courtney, William M. -- Old Fourteenth, 1946, Courtney, Long Beach, CA, 96 pp., hardback
Courtney, William M. -- Souter, unknown, Courtney, Long Beach, CA
   I have not seen any of these.   The Souter book is cited in the literature as Courtney's Souter.

Denvir, John T., and Percy M. Bradt -- Second Double Corner Book, Part 1 and 2, 1891, Denvir, Chicago, 38 pp., hardback
  Over 500 variations of the Second Double Corner Opening, covering 11-15 24-19 15x24 28x19, followed by 9-14 or 8-11.  Parts 3 and 4 do not seem to have ever appeared.

Denvir, John T. -- Single Corner number 2, 1892, Denvir, Chicago, 122 pp., hardback
  Collection of games including "wild or irregular lines".   A 20 page pamphlet by Denvir on the Single Corner appeared earlier in 1892.

Doran, Peter -- Doran's Old 14th, 1936, Wendemuth, Chicago, 62 pp., paperback
  146 principal variations of  the Old Fourteenth opening, with annotations (over 500 variations in all) and diagrams.   Reprinted in 2013 by Coachwhip (ISBN 978-1616461805).

Duffy, Joe Mexo -- Duffy's Single Corner, 1934, Frank R. Wendemuth, Chicago, 128 pp., hardback
  134 principal variations of the Single Corner Opening, with annotations and many diagrams.

Durgin, Edwin A. -- Durgin's Single Corner, 1894, John T. Denvir, 148pp., $0.50
  Durgin was draughts editor for the Boston Globe.  In addition to Durgin's analysis, there are independent sections by several other analysts.  The book "also contains Swan and Adamson's line of the Switcher".  The last 12 pages (149-160) are reviews and listings for books published by Denvir, one of the major checker publishers of the era.

Ginsberg, Louis C. -- Principles Of Strategy In The Game of Checkers, 1945, 2010, Ryan, 48 pp., paperback
   Examination of the Dyke formation, one of the most important landings.

Hester, Gordon -- Checkers, The Cross Choice Opening, 1963, Hester, 96pp.
  Detailed analysis of the Cross Choice opening, 11-15 23-28 9-14, with well over 300 variations, as well as a transposition guide showing how more than 60 of the three-move openings can reach the same positions as lines of the Cross Choice.

Hester, Gordon -- Tournament Checkers: Defiance System, 1960, 142 pp., hardback
   I have not seen this.   Apparently quite rare.

Ketchum, Preston -- The Game of Draughts, Flora Temple Branch of the Single Corner Opening, 1898, Ketchum, Madison, WI,
  Analysis of the most famous variation (named after a racehorse) of the Single Corner, with 280 variations of 11-15 22-18; 15x22 25x18; 12-16 29-25; 9-13.  "Numerous corrections  and improvements upon published play appear here, for the first time, and this book will be the exception if the critics do not, in, turn, discover some errors in the play presented."   70 analysts are credited.  Includes seven transpositions and ten problems from play.   Downloadable from the Library of Congress.

Lawson, Charles -- Lawson's Switcher Guide on the Game of Checkers, 1899, Providence, RI, 141 pp.
  Analysis of the Switcher opening 11-15 21-17 9-13, with 642 variations (and corrections), plus a transposition guide from the Switcher to other common openings.   Also a selection of problems, and the usual: Standard Laws, first five standard positions, and poems.

Lockhart, Charles Jordan -- The Black Doctor, 1995, Whitefork Press, 39 pp.
  Compilation of analysis by eight analysts on a complex branch of the Laird and Lady opening, with dozens of variations and 18 illustrative games.

Richmond, John Liddell -- The Game of Draughts: Over 150 Games and Variations on the "Single Corner" and "Alma" Openings, 1901, Gould, Middlesborough, 57 pp.

Riley, Thomas J. -- The Game of Draughts, The 31-27 Line in "The Souter", 1892, Laurence Gilbertson, Nottingham, 36 pp.
  Analysis of an alternate 20th move(!) in the Souter opening, reprinted from the West Lothian Courier (see the historical notes).

Ryan, William F. -- Streamlined Checkers, 1938, Ryan, New York, 46 pp., paperback
  Analysis of the Bronx Express opening (9-14 22-18 5-9 18-15) named and advocated by Ryan (see the historical notes).   Available at archive.org.

Schaefer, A., M.D., and Charles Kelly -- The Game of Checkers, Paisley, 1886, Evening Reporter, Woonsocket
  Dr. Schaefer was a prolific author and publisher, who edited the New York Checker Monthly in the 1880's and Schaefer's Checkerist (with Call) in 1900-1901.  He also put out a series of pamphlets on various openings, including original play: Paisley and Single Corner in 1886, Ayrshire Lassie (2 parts) in 1887, 27-23 Dyke in 1900, Will O' The Wisp (7-11 in 1902, 26-23 around 1904), and Fife (15-18 in 1903, 26-23 in 1906).  They are all rare and I have not seen any of them; details can be found in Call's Literature.

Shearer, Henry F. -- Studies of the Two-Move Openings, 3 volumes, 1914, 68 pp. total
  Rare: I had only seen it mentioned in The Draughts Review, which puts the publication date at 1914.  Shearer was a well-regarded analyst, who edited a column in the Dundee People's Journal, and published the Modern Draughts Handbook in 1912, which covered the 47 two-move openings.   These pamphlets were evidently updated versions of a few of those, and the analysis is deeper and more carefully explained.  Part 1 covers 9-13 21-17 (Switcher) and 9-14 24-20.  Part 2 covers 10-14 22-18 and 11-16 21-17 (which Shearer mistakenly calls Leeds, supposedly following Dunne's 1890 Guide, but Dunne actually applied the name Leeds to 11-16 22-17 and Newcastle to 11-16 21-17).   Part 3 covers 9-13 22-18.   I do not know if there were any volumes after the initial three.   Shearer believed the Edinburgh Single (9-13 22-18 11-15) was a loss for Black (pp. 67-68): see the historical notes.

Stearns, Lyman Marshall -- The Granite State Checker Series, 3 volumes bound together, 1889-1890, Stearns, Derry Depot, New Hampshire, 52 pp.
  Mostly analysis of the Laird and Lady (35 variations) and the Single Corner (26 variations by Chris. Pickering).   Games (with variations) in a few other openings are also included.    Each volume also includes some endgame problems with solutions.  Downloadable at the Library of Congress.  See also the historical notes on the Laird and Lady.

Stiles, John B. -- Stiles' Checker Guide, Part One, 12-16 Openings, 1939, Rex B. Wood, Gary, Indiana, 64pp., hardback
  Part One of an intended series.  As far as I can tell, no further volumes were published.   This covers all of the three-move Dundee ballots except the Skunk, plus four transpositions which are now listed under other openings (G3N, G3D, G4E, and G7E).   This may have been a further update to The Expert's Manuscript (see Three-Move Compilations above), whose section on 12-16 only ran eight pages.  Unlike its predecessor, the Checker Guide is professionally printed with clear diagrams and a clean layout.

Computers
Bryant, Martin -- The Colossal Canadian Checker Caper, Colossus v Chinook 1993, Checker Solutions, 25 pp., ISBN 1-874483-02-7
   Brief account, with all 54 games annotated, of a friendly match between the top two computer checkers programs of the day, won by Chinook +9 -2 =43.  Bryant's Colossus program was running on an ordinary IBM-compatible PC; Chinook on a powerful Silicon Graphics workstation.   Chinook's enormous database of endgame positions allowed it to escape with draws from three losing positions.

Fogel, David B. -- Blondie24, Playing at the Edge of AI, Morgan Kaufman (Academic Press), 2002, 406 + 16pp., paperback, ISBN 1-55860-783-8
  The programmer's own account of Blondie24, an ambitious but only partially successful attempt at a self-learning checkers program (using a neural network), designed by Fogel and his partner Kumar Chellapilla.  The book is viewable online at the Internet Archive.   Includes a history of game playing computer programs, including Deep Blue, Chinook, and Samuel's program.    Schaeffer was in contact with Fogel while it was being developed, and gives a brief account in the revised edition of One Jump Ahead.   The program never reached the level of a strong human player, and the programming community seemed more impressed than the checkers community.



Schaeffer, Jonathan -- One Jump Ahead: Challenging Human Supremacy in Checkers, 1997, Springer, 496 pp., hardback, ISBN 978-0387949307
Schaeffer, Jonathan -- One Jump Ahead: Computer Perfection at Checkers, 2008, Springer, 585 pp., paperback, ISBN 978-0-387-765754, $54.95, PDF $39.99
  Detailed account by the lead developer of Chinook of its development, and in the revised edition, the result that go-as-you-please 8x8 American checkers is a draw with best play.   It is also the most carefully researched account of the history of computer checkers ever written: Schaeffer had access to unpublished material from Arthur Samuel and others, and the book corrects a number of published accounts.   Uses algebraic notation with x for captures (with Black at the top), and moves numbered and paired as in chess.  Springer sells a PDF as well as a paperback edition.

Walker, Charles C., and Richard L. Fortman -- Checkers, International Checker Hall of Fame, 216 pp., spiralbound
  The 1992 annual is mostly devoted to computer checkers, with games from several matches and tournaments in which Chinook and other programs played, several articles on computer checkers, and descriptions of several other checkers programs.

Magazines and Newspapers

The magazines highlighted in pale blue are ones of which I own physical copies.

The Cleveland Public Library's John G. White Collection has a notebook of magazines and newspaper columns on checkers which runs 117 handwritten pages.   No author or date is given for the notebook.  There have been dozens of checkers columns in newspapers, particularly in the United States, but these seem mostly impossible to find online, even in large newspaper archives.   I have listed only a couple of the most notable of these below.

ACF Bulletin -- Jim Loy, ed., American Checker Federation, bimonthly, July 1952 - present, 20 pp., $52 annual membership
  Official publication of the American Checker Federation.   Games, problems (including a composing contest), tournament schedules and results, news, and marketplace.

The American Checker Monthly -- Teetzel, M.T., publisher, bimonthly, 1920-?, 32pp., $3.00 annually
  The official publication of the American Checker Association, containing news, annotated games, and problems.   I have Volume 1 (October 1920-December 1921) and most of Volume 15 from 1935; in the November-December 1935 issue W.B. Reynolds reported that his column in the Louisville Herald-Post had been discontinued, and that there were only a dozen checkers columns left in American newspapers (this was during the Depression).

American Checker Player -- Thomas Phelan, ed., et al., monthly, New York, March 1875-October 1876, 216 pp. (sequential)
  Opening analysis (reprinted from various sources), games, and problems.  Succeeded by Phelan's Checker Player in 1877.

American Checker Review -- Reed, James P. ed, et al., 1888-1890
  Twice monthly (later monthly) American magazine, with the usual mix of opening analysis, games, and problems.  The American Checker Review was succeeded in 1891 by The Weekly Checker Journal, which after a hiatus became the Checker Journal.   James Patrick Reed, the main editor, was a noted player (including blindfold) and author, including a revision of Drummond's book on the Alma Opening.   Internet Archive has all three yearly volumes of the Review, and a single volume with the full run of the Journal.

The American Checkerist -- Ryan, William F., ed., January 1939 - June 1950, monthly, 28 pp., paperback, $0.50
  I own all of Volume 4 (November 1944-December 1945), and the February 1950 issue (Vol. 6, Num. 2), containing news, annotated games, letters, problems, brief biographies, and photographs (of both celebrities and checker notables).

Badger Checker Player

Canadian Checker Player -- Manson D. Teetzel, ed., Teetzel, Chatham, Ontario, Canada, 1907-?
   News, history, and opening analysis, including synopses of some of the two-move openings.  Google Books has volume 2 (264 pp.), which includes analysis of the Black Doctor, with 100 variations (spread over five issues), and four of the two-move Edinburgh openings.

California Checker Chatter -- Leonard L. Hall, publisher, California Checkers Association, 1950-?? (Vol. 8, 1957), monthly/bimonthly, 12-24 pages
  Previously published in 1949 in ditto form (purple ink).  I have volumes 1 and 2 in a bound edition.    The early issues were printed, but later they switched to typewritten.  Very few diagrams.  Mix of news, games, and opening analysis.  

The Checker Clipper -- c. 1912-1913, newspaper

The Checkergram -- Ryan, William F., ed, monthly, 36 pp., paperback with cardboard cover, December 1929 - December 1931 (vol 2, num 9), $0.25
  Heavier on news and lighter on problems and games.   I have the first five issues of volume 1.

Checkers Magazine -- International Checkers Hall of Fame, 1987-1992
  Marion Tinsley was a notable contributor.

The Draught Board -- ed. by J. Tonar, later W. Patterson -- 1869-1872, Newcastle-on-Tyne
  According to Call, the first magazine devoted to checkers.   Extremely rare.

Draughts Razoo -- Nick McBride, ed., four issues, 2003-2004, McBride, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, 28 pages.
  Beautiful and well-received magazine from England which unfortunately only lasted four issues.   Feature articles on openings, standard positions, and events.  Excellent typography and diagrams (Black at the bottom).   Still available from the American Checker Federation.

The Draughts Review, ed. by W. G. Parker, various publishers, Hull, England, November 1924 - October 1934?, monthly, at least 20 pages
  The Official Publication of the English and Welsh Draughts Associations.  The Internet Archive has the first three volumes (Volume 1 contains 14 issues).  It included frequent features on Polish (that is, International 10x10) Draughts, and occasionally Italian and Canadian.  I bought a batch containing most of volumes 2-4 and 6-8, and part of volume 10 (up to vol, 10, num. 10, October 1934).

Elam's Checker Board -- ed. by Emin Elam, Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, January 1947 - July 1971 (Vol. 25, Num. 7), monthly, 36 pages
  Long-running American magazine with a mix of problems (by such notables as Ben Boland and Tommie Wiswell), solving contests, opening analysis, annotated games (including some Eleven-Man Ballot), tournament results, and other news.   The pages are numbered sequentially from the magazine's founding: I have a large batch of issues covering most of the period from December 1950 (Vol. 4, Num. 12) to December 1955 (Vol. 9, Num. 12), running from pages 1357-3084.  It was the successor to Wood's Checker Player: Elam had published a column in the Mt. Sterling Advocate, from 1936-1946, and merged it with Wood's.   None of the newspaper archives I searched has any issues of the Advocate from this time period.

English Draughts Journal -- edited by E.C. Whiting and others (most recently P. Braithwaite), English Draughts Assocation, December 1961 - December 2019 (v. 59 n.4), about 20 pages
   The official publication of the English Draughts Association, including news and annotated games.  Richard Pask was editor from 1987-1991 and 1996-1999.

Games Digest -- ed. by Ely Culbertson, September 1937 - December 1938, 64 pp., monthly, $0.20
   Bridge expert Ely Culbertson edited Games Digest, which included a regular column on checkers edited by Newell Banks, with problems by Thomas Wiswell and other composers, annotated games, and opening analysis.   The May 1938 issue (pp. 45-46) has John G. Finley's analysis of the Octopus, showing 9-14 on Black's fourth move to be a loss.   The June 1938 issue (pp. 28-29) included an article by Bernard Talis on Stricker's Contract Checkers, including a sample game.

International Draughts Magazine -- conducted by J.A. Kear, monthly, 12 pages.
  Volume 1, number 1 was dated January 1st, 1888.  [International here does not refer to the modern 10x10 game.]   Kear, the renowned author, analyst and publisher, had previously edited the Bristol Draughts Player and the English Draughts Player.   Contains annotated games, opening analysis, problems, news, and announcements of new publications.  A digitized version of the first three volumes (running through May 1892) is available online.   It suspended publication at that time, and apparently never resumed.  The last issue of Volume 3 announced the formation of the British Draughts Association, which fizzled out within a year.

Keystone Checker Review -- Fernie Moffett, later James E. Reed, ed., bimonthly, 1956-1995
  In 1994 Mr. Reed gave me four sample issues during a personal visit.   Recently I obtained a bound set of the last six volumes, 1990-1995, numbered consecutively, 984 pages in all.   Originally the official magazine of the Pennsylvania State Checker Association, it began in April 1956 and was edited by Fernie Moffett for its first 15 years (so there must have been a substantial gap between the two editors).

King-Row Review -- William F. Ryan, ed., March and April 1936, 16 pages
  In 1936, Willie Ryan split from the American Checker Association and formed his own organization, the North American Checker Association.  This was the official publication, but only lasted two issues.

New England Checker Bulletin -- Cambridge, MA

North American Checker Board

Straight Master Checkers -- Edward L. Ebert, ed., Master Checkers, Detroit, MI, monthly, 20 pages, July 1973 - ???
I have a single bound book containing issues through October 1975 (Vol. 5, Num. 4).   It included problems (including cover problems by Tom Wiswell and others), game and opening analysis.   Other staff included Jack Cox, Richard Fortman, and Don Lafferty.  Possibly associated with NOST-Algia of the same period: the exact same size and style (colored cardboard covers, etc.).

Midwest Checkers -- ed. by Richard L. Fortman and Louis Van Deven, February 1979 - ??? (Vol. 12, 1990), bimonthly, 10 pages
I have the first two volumes (through December 1980, Vol.2 Num. 6) in a single spiralbound booklet.    News and games, mostly annotated by Fortman.   The June 1980 issue (Vol, 2, Num. 3, p.85) published two 21-move captureless blocked games, composed by Alan Malcolm Beckerson on March 15th and 16th, 1980.   Successor to The Sixth District Newsletter (1976-???).

Morris-Systems Checkerist -- Banks, Newell Williams, ed., monthly, 24 pages
  The usual mix.   I have several issues from 1925 (Volume 3).   In addition to news, games, and problems, there is a Spanish Pool Department edited by S. Herskowitz.   Internet Archive has all 11 issues from 1926 (September/October was a single issue).

The New British Draughts Journal, quarterly, ISSN 0966-1549
   BDF, 384a Wells Road, Knowle, Bristol BS4 2QP

Recreationist -- J. Hedley, checkers editor, Leeds, monthly, 1873-1874, 168 pp.
  Short-lived but influential publication, frequently cited in Call's Vocabulary of Checkers.  Analysis by Dunne (who mentioned it in his Guide and Companion) and others.   The important position Tregaskis's Draw was first published here in August 1874.   Several opening names were first proposed here, including Albion, Cross-Choice, Erin, Sunderland, and Virginia.  Other proposed names turned out to be for lines which lose [Hermit (11-15 23-19 8-11 22-17 10-14; see Pask's Repertoire p.420, #21) and Thames (11-15 23-19 8-11 24-20; see Pask's Repertoire p. 419, #37)] or are very weak [Mersey (11-15 22-17 9-14 17-13) and Delaware (11-15 23-19 9-14 22-17 15-18)].

Roseville Citizen -- John G. Finley, checkers editor, weekly, Citizens Publishing Company, Newark, NJ, 1915-???
  I have not been able to find out much about this periodical, which was a weekly (Thursday) newspaper, according to the Ayer Directory of Newspapers listed in Google Books.  The checker column was edited from 1921-1940 (according to Ben Boland's Bridges) by John G. Finley, an author who was secretary of the American Checker Association from 1922-1927.   None of the other usual bibliographic sources have any information (it's not even listed in Newspapers.com), but it is one of the four periodicals recommended in Held's 1935 Guide, and was influential enough to be cited by authors such as Boland and Willie Ryan.   An regular ad in the Draughts Review says the column ran four 20-inch columns every week (about a third of the whole paper!), calling it the "Largest Weekly Column in the World".

The Square World -- Derek Oldbury, ed., Draughts Players' Guild, bimonthly, 16 pages, January 1965 - December 1966

Texas Longhorn Checker Bulletin -- William V. Scott, ed., Texas Checker Association, Bowie, TX, quarterly, July 1949 - April 1952 (10 issues), 144 numbered pages

Wood's Checker Player -- ed. by Rex B. Wood, Gary, Indiana, monthly, 24 pages, December 1936 - September 1946
  Successor of sorts to Wood's Checker Studies (see Three-Move Compilations above).  

Other Variants

International Draughts (10x10)
Goedmoed, Tjalling -- A Course in International Draughts, 2008, 166 pp., PDF

Kacher, Jake -- The Secrets of International Checkers, 90 pp., PDF

Westerveld, Goevert -- Beautiful Introductory Forcing Moves and Hidden Combinations, Years 1885-1933; 2021, Academia de Estudos Humanisticos, 234 pp., hardback, 978-1-716-170156-7
  Combinations taken from games, featuring history and profiles of many top players.   Many photographs and diagrams.   Available as a PDF.
Westerveld, Goevert -- Draughts is more difficult than chess, 2020, Lulu Editors, 80 pp., hardback, 978-1-716-43612-3
  Bilingual text (English and Spanish).  Quotations from notable players (in both English and International) on the superiority (or at least equality) of checkers over chess.

International draughts openings (10x10)
Babić, Mirko -- Damopenings Encyclopedie (Enciklopedija Damistićkih Otvaranja), Book 1 (1. 35-30, 1. 32-27), 1989, Mirko Babić, 86 pp., paperback
Babić, Mirko -- Damopenings Encyclopedie (Enciklopedija Damistićkih Otvaranja), Book 2 (1. 31-27), 1989, Mirko Babić, 168 pp., paperback
Babić, Mirko -- Damopenings Encyclopedie (Enciklopedija Damistićkih Otvaranja), Book 3 (1. 31-25), 1990, Mirko Babić, 113 pp., paperback
Babić, Mirko -- Damopenings Encyclopedie (Enciklopedija Damistićkih Otvaranja), Book 4 (1. 34-30), 1990, Mirko Babić, paperback   [missing]
A collection of 10x10 games, sorted by openings, along the lines of the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings.

World Draughts Federation, The Opening of the Game, 44 pages, World Draughts Federation, PDF
Detailed guide to openings in International Checkers on the FMJD website.

Pool checkers (8x8)
Black, Clyde "Kingrow", and Archie "Checkerboard" Waters -- The Secrets of Spanish Pool Checkers, Book 1, 1947, paperback, ISBN 978-0685208632
Black, Clyde "Kingrow", and Archie "Professor" Waters -- The Secrets of Spanish Pool Checkers, Book 2, 1950, 173pp., hardback

Faal, Momodou, reassembled by Jake Kacher -- The "NOW" Checkers, 2024, 103 pp., numeric notation, PDF
  Professional version of Faal's handwritten original.

Hanauer, Milton L. -- Checkers Made Simple, 1963, Doubleday, 175pp., large pulp paperback, $1.45
  Rare book by an author who also wrote several introductory books on chess.   Introductory work on American checkers; there is also a substantial chapter (pp. 145-163) on Spanish Pool, including rules, tactics, endgames, and openings.   The rule differences in Russian, and Polish (i.e. International) Checkers are also explained, and a few books on Russian checkers are listed.

Hines, Theodore P. -- Pool Checkers or Spanish Pool, 1947, 1969, University Place Book Shop, 125 pp., 2024, Coachwhip, ISBN 9781616465834, $22.22
  49 annotated games with opening variations, and a selection of problems.   The author uses the compound names for most of the two-move openings.

Kacher, Jake -- Encyclopedia of Endings, The American Pool Checkers, 2024, 249 pp., PDF
Kacher, Jake -- Pool Checkers Collection, Strategy and Analysis, 2023, 204 pp., PDF

A series of books (mostly self-published, seemingly all out of print and hard to find) by Vladimir Kaplan, a grandmaster and champion player, on American Pool checkers:
Kaplan, Vladimir -- American checkers : The Middle of the Game, Kaplan, 1996, 233 pages, ISBN 978-0961143640
Strategy in the midgame, including restrictions and clamps, and blockades and separation of the flanks.
Kaplan, Vladimir -- The Art of American Pool Checkers, Kaplan, New York, 1983, 277 pp., paperback, 978-0961143602
Detailed textbook on tactics, combinations, and strategy, with hundreds of problems and full solutions.
Kaplan, Vladimir -- The key to a success at American checkers : Master the middle of the game, Book 2, 1999, Kaplan, 224 pages, ISBN 978-0961143657
Among the topics are backward, hanging, and isolated pieces; pieces on opposite flanks; encirclement of the center.
Kaplan, Vladimir -- Play Checkers and Win, Kaplan, New York, 1988, 254 pages, ISBN 978-0961143626
The first section covers sacrifices, the remainder openings.
Kaplan, Vladimir -- Pool checkers: Theory and Practice, 1980, David McKay, hardback, 978-0679512769
Kaplan, Vladimir -- Strive to be Superior in American Checkers, 1994, Kaplan, New York, 214 pp., ISBN 978-0961143633
Roughly half the book is a general introduction to strategy; the rest is a detailed guide to openings.  Most of the openings are listed at the Lidraughts website.
Kaplan, Vladimir -- The Tactics of American Pool Checkers, Book 1: Typical Sacrifices, 1984, Kaplan, 256pp., paperback, ISBN 978-09611436
Nearly 700 examples of sacrifices in pool checkers, divided into ten categories, followed by some illustrative games.
Kaplan, Vladimir -- Tournament checkers: An introduction to pool checkers, 1980, Taplinger, 220 pp., ISBN 978-0800842055
Basic tactics and positional strategy, with an annotated selection of complete games and endings played by the author.
Kaplan, Vladimir M., and J. Myrick Frazier -- Pool checker games featuring Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Kaplan : shots, draws, wins; 1978, Pool Checker Masters, Detroit, Mich., 40 pp.
Book 5 of a series on Pool checker games.

Ramsey, George, and William Richardson -- The Amazing World of American Pool Checkers, 218 pp.

Turkish draughts
Mamoun, Dr. John S. -- Turkish Checkers or Dama, 2021, Mamoun, 319 pp., paperback, ISBN 9798488793125, $11.99
Basic strategy in Turkish draughts, with hundreds of diagrams, covering opening, middle game, and endgame tactics.

Miscellaneous

Abstract Games -- Kerry Handscomb, ed., 2000-present, quarterly/irregular, usually 32 pp.
  The best magazine ever on the entire field of abstract games (excluding orthodox chess and checkers).   Periodic coverage of Bashne and Camelot, plus features on specific checker variations: Hexdame (8), Croda (9), Dameo and Frisian (10), Lasca (11), Emergo (13), and Sleeping Beauty Draughts (14).   More details on the magazine as a whole are on our Abstract Games page.

Babbitt, Warren Morris, M.D. -- Directions for Playing Trangle Chess and Checkers, 1897, 9 pp.
  Three-handed versions of chess and checkers (also playable by two), played on a triangular board eight triangles wide in each direction.   Each player in Trangle Checkers has 12 pieces, on both colors; pieces can move and capture forward in three directions, and promote on any white triangle along the farthest row.

Beasley, John -- The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, 2007, Beasley, PDF, ISBN 978-0-9555168-0-1
  Second edition of David Pritchard's The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, reorganized by category and expanded.   The definitive work on chess variants, it includes details on several combination chess-checkers games.
 
  

Boyer, Joseph, and V.R. Parton -- Les Jeux de Dames Non Orthodoxes, et Autres Jeux a Pions, 1956, 112 pp.
  A compendium in French containing 100 variants, at the time the most comprehensive collection of checker variants, although some of the games (go, reversi, mancala) are not at all variants of checkers.    Some of the games were devised by the authors (both of whom wrote multiple books on chess variants).   There are versions for three and four players, and versions played on three- and four(!)- dimensional boards.

Dale, Thomas -- The Sheffield Draught Player, or The Theory and Practice of the Losing Game, 1866, F.R. Spark, Leeds, 30pp.
  Apparently the first guide to Giveaway Checkers.   Dale gives rules, general theory, eight sample games, and 12 problems with solutions, including four (impossible) positions with a single man or king against 12 pieces in their initial positions.

Donovan, Tristan -- Great Board Games of the Ancient World, 2022, Wondrium, DVD
  Chapter 11, King Me! Alquerque and Checkers (about 30 minutes), is a brief video history of checkers, and its probable forerunner Alquerque.

Dunne, Frank -- The Draughts-Player's Guide and Companion, 1890, Dunne, Warrington, 212 pp.
   One of the most interesting 19th-century books.  More than half the book covers the English game, including the usual sections on The Move, endgames, openings, and sample games.   There is also a section of Literary Miscellanea with stories and poems (it is remarkable how many checker publications include poetry), five pages on The Losing Game (mostly from T. Dale's 1886 book The Sheffield Draughts Player), and Curious Games and Positions, which includes block games won by both players, and T.J. Brown's 172-move Interchange, which ends with no captures and the positions of both players reversed (but with 6 kings each).  [An improved solution of 120 moves was published in 1968: see the Gardner article below in Last Recreations.]   There are also substantial (and complimentary) sections on four regional variants, which include problems and sample games: Spanish (flying kings, but no backward capture by pawns), Italian, Polish (10x10 International; Dunne gives a few 10x10 openings with names), and Turkish.  Downloadable from the Library of Congress.

Gardner, Martin -- The Last Recreations, 1997, Copernicus, 392 pp., hardback, ISBN 0-387-94929-1
  Chapters 13 and 14, Checker Recreations Part I and II, pp. 207-232 cover checkers, including regional and modern variations.   Part I has a number of errors which are corrected in Part II, including the shortest known game (20 total moves with captures, and 21 without, by Alan Malcolm Beckerson (one of a number he discovered in 1977).  Martin Bryant later proved, using his program Colossus, that 20 total moves was the shortest game possible.  Only one of 32 possible positions ends with a Black piece left (and blocked); it can be reached by: 9-14 22-18; 11-15 18x11; 7x16 24-20; 2-7 20x2; 3-7 2x18; 1-6 21-17; 10-15 18x9; 5x21 23-19; 12-16 19x3; 4-8 3x12.
 
Gardner, Martin -- Mathematical Magic Show, 1977, 1989, The Mathematical Association of America, 302 pp., paperback, ISBN
  Chapter 14, Knights of the Square Table, pp. 197-202, covers Cheskers, including a five move foolsmate by Wilfred H. Shepherd.

Gardner, Martin -- The Unexpected Hanging and Other Mathematical Diversions, 1969, 1991, University of Chicago Press, 264 pp., paperback, ISBN 0-226-28256-2
  Chapter 8, A Matchbox Game Learning Machine, pp. 90-102 describe minicheckers variants on 4x4 and 5x5 boards.  4x4 is a draw with best play; 5x5 with 3 checkers a side on the first and last ranks is a win, though Gardner does not say who wins.  Minicheckers on 6x6 boards was investigated at least as early as 1901 (see Minor Boards in Call's Vocabulary of Checkers).

Gibson, Walter -- Family Games America Plays, 1970, Barnes & Noble, 275 pp., paperback, ISBN 978-0064633765, $2.50
  Chapter 3, Board Games, gives a brief introduction to checkers (pp. 45-60), and a couple of pages on giveaway checkers, including an instructive illustrative game.

Golomb, Solomon W. -- "Of Knights and Cooks, and the Game of Cheskers", Journal of Recreational Mathematics, Vol. 1, Number 3, July 1968, pp. 130-38.

Goren, Charles H. -- Goren's Hoyle Encyclopedia of Games, 1950, 1961, Greystone Hawthorne (Chancellor Hall), 656 pp., hardback
  Includes Contract Checkers and other variants.

Knight, Damon -- Charles Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained, 1970, Doubleday, 224 pp., hardback
  Describes Fort's game of Super-checkers on pp. 177-178.

Parlett, David -- The Oxford History of Board Games, 1999, Oxford University Press, 386 pp., hardback, ISBN 0-19-212998-8
  Draughts variations are covered on pp. 250-275 (most of Chapter15, Take That!), including history, and a brief survey of regional and modern variants.

Schmittberger, Wayne -- New Rules For Classic Games
  Chapter 12, Beyond Checkers, pp. 169-184, covers 20 variants (a few of which appear in Boyer & Parton); it does a good job of covering regional variants, but is very dismissive of Anglo-American checkers. 

Tapalnitski, Aleh -- Meet Dameo!, 55 pages, free PDF download
  Excellent introduction to Freeling's variant, with rules, strategy, problems, and sample games.

Twiss, Richard -- Miscellanies, Volume II, 1805, London, 391 pp.
  On pages 135-240 is a long, rambling essay mostly on 10x10 Polish (International) Draughts, with historical notes, endgame problems, and a few variants (including a three-player variant on a triangular board, from an 1802 book by J.G. Lallement).   This was panned by George Walker in his 1845 revision of Sturges: "His leaves smell less of the midnight lamp, than of the paste and scissors ... whenever Twiss is original, he is almost always found to be wrong."

Organizations
The World Draughts Federation (Fédération Mondiale du Jeu de Dames), founded in 1947, is an international organization uniting various national federations in numerous forms of the game, particularly International Draughts.  The website has a great deal of information, including books and other instructional material, on several different forms of checkers, including an opening guide to 10x10 International Draughts in PDF format.  There are also downloadable books (bilingual Portuguese/English) on Brazilian draughts by Alexander Loureiro.   There are also links to sites by noted historians Arie van der Stoep and Govert Westerveld.    There is also an International Draughts Federation devoted to the 64-square International game.

Among the best sources of information on the Anglo-American game are:
The American Checker Federation (founded in 1947 by the merger of the American Checker Association, founded in 1906, and William F. Ryan's rival 1937 organization the National Checker Association).
The English Draughts Association (founded 1898); there is also a World Checkers Draughts Federation.

Websites
The Checker Maven (Bob Newell) is one of the richest information sites on American checkers, with many strategy articles, reviews, and links, and downloadable copies of numerous books, including the superb books by Richard Pask.

The North Carolina Checker Association has a huge website with news, history (including an archive of newspaper articles), and instructional material.   Particularly valuable is The 1st 20 Best Published Play "Book" Moves in 3-Move Checkers, a detailed summary of all 156 ballot openings, compiled from fifteen different sources.    Another guide to openings is at the Albion High School Alumni website.

The Checker Cruncher is an online database of problems and games, with a clean graphical interface.   The Opening Explorer acts as a convenient interface to the Open Checkers Archive, a collection of over 22,000 games sorted by opening, developed by Hans l'Hoest, Jim Loy, and others.  It gives frequencies and statistics (Black win, draw, White win) for each move in any position, and complete historical games, similar to databases for chess openings.

Start Checkers contains introductory guides to openings, book reviews, and biographies of some notable players.

John Savard's website has useful information on openings (including a history of restrictions), and also on other variants of checkers, including his own invention English Gothic Double Checkers.

Checkers USA has a sizable library of downloadable books in both checkers (Anglo-American, International, Pool, and Russian) and chess.

The World of Pool Checkers has links to many downloadable books in both English and Russian (the Russian books deal with Russian checkers, very similar to American Pool; they are in algebraic notation with diagrams, and can be followed to some degree without any knowledge of Russian).

Many books in Dutch on 10x10 International draughts, as well as equipment (boards, pieces, and clocks) can be purchased at Damboeken.NL.

Mats Wither's Board Games site is a rich source of information on many abstract board games, particularly chess and draughts variants.    He has produced playable versions of many games for the Zillions system.

Eric van Dusseldorp runs Eric's Damsite (in Dutch, but with some content also in English and several other languages) is a rich source of information on 10x10 International draughts, including problems, world records, and history.  (This may be out of date: the animations (probably in Flash) don't run on modern browsers.)

Sultan Ratrout has compiled a very detailed taxonomy of checkers variants, A Guide to Checkers Families and Rules.

Lidraughts is an open server for International Draughts and six other variants; instructional material is available, in both text form and interactive lessons (using the online app).

PlayOK is an open server for nine variants, including Anglo-American checkers

A good video series on YouTube is by azcheckers.

Appendix 1: Anglo-American (8x8) Checker Openings

Two-Move Ballot
The unrestricted form of Anglo-American checkers (sometimes called go-as-you-please or GAYP) has had a world champion since 1840.  Eventually, the number of draws became so high that openings in each game were drawn at random from all of the playable pairs (later trios) of opening moves, forcing players to be familiar with a much wider range of openings.  (A notorious game in the 1863 Wyllie-Martins match was played 28 times from start to finish with exactly the same moves.)  The first system for selecting openings at random chose the first move for each player from a random deck of 43 possibilities, omitting six opening move pairs that produce forced exchanges which were thought to lose for White.  Four of the two-move openings formerly barred were reinstated in 1915, with some controversy (see Banks' Scientific Checkers); only the 21-17 reply to 9-14 or 10-14 was still barred (these two are collectively called the Charleston, and are sometimes played by experts against novices as a handicap).   46 of the two-move openings are part of three-move ballots (12-16 23-19 16x23, which was believed to be a loss for White (see Cayton's A Compilation of the Barred Openings) is barred; in 2007, Chinook confirmed that it is in fact lost.)   Part 1 of Dennis C. Cayton's "A History of the Barred Openings" (Keystone Checker Review, vol. 4, num. 6, pp.  629-633, December 1993) gives much more detail on the history of these openings between 1893 and 1931.  Parts 2 and 3, covering three-move, continue in vol. 5, nums. 1 & 2.

Three-Move Ballot
Three-Move Ballot (Three-Move Restriction) is a later development, starting in 1931, and introduced into the U.S. Championship in 1934.  The original version (which chose Black's first move, White's first move, and Black's second move) was selected by a panel of five experts (A.J. Heffner, John F. Horr, Louis C. Ginsberg, Asa Long, and H.B. Reynolds), who chose 150 openings (the American Restriction).   Details and a full list can be found in the Draughts Review, Vol. 7, Num. 3, March 1931.   After being tested in tournaments, it was reduced to 138 openings.   The Draughts Review reported this, almost joyfully, in Vol. 10, Num. 8, August 1934 (p. 128): "As they are rather a sorry lot their elimination rather improves this style of restriction, and for practical purposes they may well be definitely and permanently sunk into oblivion.  There are still a few openings left on the approved list which might appropriately follow them to the limbo of forgotten things."   [Great Britain was slower to accept three-move restriction, and leaned toward the view that openings should not be too unbalanced, while the American view was generally that any tenable opening should be allowed.]   In 1937, the opening now known as the Nutcracker (10-15 22-17 9-14), soon to be shown as a loss by Willie Ryan, was voted out, leaving 137 possibilities. 

In 1952, in Elam's Checker Board, Marion Tinsley listed eight openings (four which were rejected in 1931, four which were dropped shortly thereafter) which he thought might be drawable.  He was proved correct on all eight, which were eventually reinstated.   After decades of analytical work, the permitted openings were increased to 142 in 1970, and 144 in 1994 (both in orange below) as more lines were analyzed more deeply and found playable.  In 1992, The American Checker Federation began a play-by-mail ladder, under the direction of Dennis C. Cayton, to investigate the 24 three-move openings which were still barred at that time, but had potential to be drawable.  In 2003, The American Checker Federation added 12 more playable openings (highlighted below in light green), for a total of 156 (see Pask, The Golden Dozen).  (The Black Hole was added later than the other 11.)   The 156 ballots include 8 of the 12 openings which were eliminated from the original 150, and 11 which were not even in the original 150.]   Cayton and the other analysts did a remarkable job, as modern computer analysis indicates that all of the playable three-move ballots have been found.  Alex Moiseyev devised a special deck of 13 cards which are shuffled before each game begins.   The first card drawn tells which line to read on the second card, giving 13 x 12 = 156 possibilities.   In 1994, the world championship was split into two versions: go-as-you-please and 3-move, both still played today.

With the first three moves, there are 302 sequences, of which 86 are transpositions [either swapping Black's first two moves, or reaching identical positions such as 11-16/8-11 and 12-16/8-12], leaving 216 unique positions.  42 of these result in the imminent loss of a piece, leaving 174 playable positions.   (The 1931 panel looked at 186 openings, but 12 of these were simple swaps of Black's first two moves, which were all eliminated).   Richard Atwell was advocating for three-move restriction as early as 1905, stating in his book Scientific Draughts that there were "218 absolutely sound Openings", though he was not counting exchanges, so some of his openings are actually five moves.

Four-Move Restriction
This was being discussed not very long after three-move restriction began (see Held's Guide and Banks' Checker Board Strategy), but has not been tried in any serious tournaments I am aware of.  Ed Gilbert has laid a foundation by using Kingsrow to find 542 playable positions after the first two moves by each player. These are more favorable to Black than three-move ballots: about 234 give Black at least a small edge, compared to 176 for White, with the remaining positions balanced.   [In the first four moves, there are 1469 possible sequences, yielding 805 unique positions.]

Transpositions and Landings
There are many transpositions in the checker openings.   Learning key positions called landings can avoid memorizing dozens of transpositions.   Richard Pask's Key Landings is a valuable reference.

Barred     New 1970 and 1994 Ballots    New 2003 Ballots   Traditional Names    Official ACF Names      Other 8x8 Names     [Transpositions]   <Traps>

We use numerical notation with captures indicated by x; many sources, including most older books, do not specifically indicate captures.  Underlined sets of moves are simple transpositions (different move orders).    Star moves (denoted *) are moves necessary to hold a win in winning positions, or a draw in other positions.  Forced captures are given in boldface.    Openings marked AP are untenable in American Pool and similar variants because they allow a double capture.    Openings marked 150 are the twelve openings approved in 1931 but dropped in reducing to 138.

Opening names
In the 19th century, when all play was go-as-you-please, there were two dozen or so named openings, most of them from the 11-15 opening move, long understood to be Black's best initial move.  All of these traditional names are still in use, and most of the openings are still played frequently.  Some sources insist that Bristol only applies to the 24-20 reply to 11-16 (or even 11-16 24-20; 16-19), but it seems preferable to have a single name for each Black opening move (although the strongest and most common move, 11-15, had no accepted name until Tom Wiswell suggested the name Old Faithful, which has become standard).   Wiswell uses Paisley as the name for 11-16 in several of his books; generally Paisley is now used specifically for 11-16 24-19 (or even 11-16 24-19 8-11).   Similarly, some sources define the Ayrshire Lassie as 11-15 24-20; 8-11 28-24, but it nowadays refers to all 11-15 24-20 openings.  Many openings in Brazilian, Czech, Italian, and Russian Draughts, and American Pool correspond to well-known lines in Anglo-American checkers, though they have different names.   In variations with backward capture (Brazilian, Russian, and American Pool), some lines of opening theory will be altered or eliminated.

Compound Names
Attempts have been made to standardize the names for White's first move in order to give compound names to the two-move ballots, but most of these have not been widely adopted (they are derided by Tescheleit in his Master Play of the Draught Board).  Usually White replies are designated as follows: 21-17 Switcher, 22-17 Choice (or Regular), 22-18 Single, 23-18 Cross, 23-19 Book, 24-19 Second, and 24-20 Lassie, and most two-move openings (except the 11-15's) have a compound name: e.g. 9-14 22-18 is termed Double Single; 10-15 23-19 is Kelso Book; 11-16 24-19 is Bristol Second (usually called Paisley).  White's first move 11-15 was sometimes called Regular; other sources used the traditional names like Second Double Corner and Ayrshire Lassie.   Among the books that use most of these names are Erroll Smith's 1922 Checker Classics, the 1922 and 1924 Fifth and Sixth American Checker Tourney books, Ryan's 1929 It's Your Move, and Hines' 1947 Pool Checkers.  [Atwell's 1905 Scientific Draughts uses different terms for most of the replies.]   Probably three-move restriction caused most of the compound terms to fade from use: Double Cross is the most notable still in standard use.

9-13              Edinburgh        Petrov's Game
 9-13 21-17
 9-13 21-17   5-9              5-9 Switcher  (25-21 best)
 9-13 21-17   6-9              6-9 Switcher  (25-21 best; 24-20 is a very difficult draw; all other moves lose)
 9-13 22-17  13x22
 9-13 22-18                    Downfall
 9-13 22-18   6-9              Dreaded Edinburgh   (historical notes)
 9-13 22-18  10-14 18x9 5x14   Inferno    (historical notes)
 9-13 22-18  10-15             Henderson     (historical notes)
 9-13 22-18  11-15 18x11       Edinburgh Single  (historical notes)
 9-13 22-18  11-16             Wilderness 1        (historical notes)
 9-13 22-18  11-16 18-14  10x17 21x14     Australian Opening
 9-13 23-18                    Edinburgh Cross
 9-13 23-18  10-14             Inferno 2
 9-13 23-18  11-16             Wilderness 2   (historical notes)
  9-13 23-19   5-9  22-18  10-14 27-23  6-10 25-22  1-5   Paxton defense
 9-13 23-19  10-14
 9-13 23-19  10-15 19x10       Garter Snake   (historical notes)
  9-13 23-19  11-15             [Will O' The Wisp]
 9-13 24-19  10-14             New Edinburgh  (historical notes)   1994   150
 9-13 24-20
 9-13 24-20  11-15 22-17       [Wagram]
 9-13 24-20  11-16 20x11       Twilight Zone  (historical notes)
 9-13 24-20  12-16                                                                                             150

9-14              Double Corner
 9-14 21-17? 14x21             Charleston                      
 9-14 22-17
 9-14 22-17  11-15 25-22  15-19   Double Corner Dyke
 9-14 22-17  11-16 24-19       [Pioneer]
  9-14 22-18                    Kaulen's Game, or Bay State
 9-14 22-18   5-9  18-15?!     Bronx Express    (historical notes)
 9-14 22-18  11-15             Double Corner Choice
  9-14 22-18  14-17             Pluto
 9-14 23-18  14x23             Double Cross    (historical notes)
 9-14 23-19
  9-14 23-19   5-9   22-17 11-15   [Fife]
 9-14 23-19  10-15? 19x10  6x15    Rattlesnake   (historical notes)
 9-14 24-19
 9-14 24-19  10-15?                (historical notes)
 9-14 24-20

10-14             Denny
10-14 21-17? 14x21              Charleston             
10-14 22-17
10-14 22-17   7-10              Dubious Denny   (historical notes)
10-14 22-17   9-13 17x10        Black Hole      (historical notes)    150
10-14 22-17  11-15 17x10  7x14  Tinsley's Denny, or Denny Dodger   (historical notes)  150  AP
10-14 22-17  11-16 17x10        Gemini 1        (historical notes)
10-14 22-17  14-18 23x14  9x18  Heebie-Jeebies  (historical notes)
10-14 22-18
10-14 22-18   7-10              Fraser's Inferno    1970  (historical notes)   150
10-14 22-18  12-16              [White Doctor]      1970  (historical notes)
10-14 23-18  14x23              Denny Exchange  (historical notes)
10-14 23-19
10-14 23-19   6-10                                  1970    (historical notes)    150
10-14 23-19   7-10              Diabolical Denny    1970  (historical notes)  150
10-14 23-19   7-10 19-15         Wolfville
10-14 23-19  11-15 19x10  6x15  Virginia  1994    (historical notes)  150  AP
10-14 23-19  11-15 19x10  6x15  22-18    Grand Canyon Attack
10-14 23-19  11-15 19x10  6x15  22-18  15x22 26x10  7x14 25-22 8-11   Bermuda Triangle Attack
10-14 23-19  11-16 26-23  9-13 24-20?? 14-17 21x14  6-10  20x11  10x26  31x22  8x31   <Denny trap>   (or 14-17 20x11 17x26 31x22 8x31)
10-14 24-19
10-14 24-19   6-10              Nemesis      (historical notes)
10-14 24-19   7-10 28-24 11-16 32-28    Hartshorn Attack
10-14 24-19  11-15? 19x10  6x15  Rattlesnake 2    (historical notes)    AP
10-14 24-20

10-15             Kelso      Fillipov's Game
10-15 21-17      
10-15 21-17   6-10  17-13  1-6  Albion    (historical notes)
10-15 21-17   7-10              Octopus      (historical notes)
10-15 21-17   9-13
             Tyne            (historical notes)
10-15 22-17                     Dyke
10-15 22-17   9-14? 17x10  7x14 Nutcracker            (historical notes)    AP
10-15 22-17  15-19              Skull Cracker   (historical notes)
10-15 22-18  15x22              Kelso Single  or Kelso Exchange    (25x18 is best)
10-15 23-18                     Kelso Cross
10-15 23-18   6-10              Goatgetter      (historical notes)
10-15 23-18   7-10              Strickland's Cross   (historical notes)
10-15 23-19
10-15 23-19   6-10 22-17  11-16?? 17-13 16x23 13x6  2x9  27x2     <Fool's Trap>
10-15 23-19   7-10              [current ballot equivalent to older 11-15 23-19 7-11]
10-15 23-19  11-16 19x10        Gemini 2  (historical notes)     150
10-15 24-19  15x24
10-15 24-20                     Kelso-Lassie

11-15            Old Faithful
11-15 21-17                    Switcher
11-15 21-17   9-13             Reverse Game of Bodyansky
11-15 21-17   9-13 23-18       Squirrel
11-15 21-17   9-13 25-21   8-11   Switcher
11-15 21-17   9-13 25-21   8-11 17-14  10x17  21x14  6-10 22-17  13x22  26x17     old Switcher trunk
11-15 21-17   9-13 25-21   8-11 30-25     modern Switcher trunk (see Fortman or Pask)
11-15 21-17   9-14 25-21  15-19     Switcher Dyke
11-15 21-17  10-14?              Neutron Star     150

11-15 22-17                    Dyke
11-15 22-17   8-11 17-13   4-8  21-17    Albemarle
11-15 22-17   8-11 17-13   4-8  23-19    [Old Fourteenth]
11-15 22-17   8-11 17-13   4-8  25-22    Douglas   (Lady of Lorna)
11-15 22-17   8-11 17-13   9-14          Erie
11-15 22-17   8-11 17-13  11-16 21-17  15-19  24x15 10x19   Kiev Defense
11-15 22-17   8-11 17-13  11-16 24-20                       Leningrad Defense
11-15 22-17   8-11 17-13  11-16 25-22  15-19  24x15 10x19   New Leningrad Defense
11-15 22-17   8-11 17-13  15-18 23x14    Maid of the Mill
11-15 22-17   8-11 17-14        White Dyke
11-15 22-17   8-11 23-19                 [transposes to Orthodox trunk]
11-15 22-17   8-11 25-22  11-16   Pioneer    (many transpositions)
11-15 22-17   8-11 25-22  11-16 24-19     Dyachkov's Defense      (23-18? instead is weak according to Kaplan)
11-15 22-17   8-11 25-22   4-8  23-19   9-13    Medkov's Game
11-15 22-17   8-11 26-22        Sokov's Defense
11-15 22-17   9-13 17-14  10x17  21x14      Boston
11-15 22-17   9-13 17-14  10x17  21x14   8-11  23-19   [Laird and Lady]   (historical notes)
11-15 22-17   9-13 24-20  13x22  25x11      Wagram
11-15 22-17   9-13 25-21         [Switcher]
11-15 22-17   9-14               Central Game
11-15 22-17   9-14 23-19   7-11  [Whilter]
11-15 22-17   9-14 25-22         Laurieston
11-15 22-17   9-14 25-22  15-19  [Double Corner Dyke]
11-15 22-17  15-18               Wellington
11-15 22-17  15-19             Dyke trunk
11-15 22-17  15-19 24x15  10x19  23x16  12x19 17-13    Header 

11-15 22-18  15x22             Single Corner       Romanicheva's Game
11-15 22-18  15x22 25x18   8-11  29-25   4-8  25-22  10-15 24-20 12-16 27-24? (or 28-24?) 15-19 24x15 16-19  23x16  9-14  18x9  11x25  <Goose Walk>
11-15 22-18  15x22 25x18   8-11  29-25   4-8  24-19? 10-15 19x10  6x29    <alternate>
11-15 22-18  15x22 25x18   8-11  29-25   4-8  18-14  10x14 21x14  9x18 23x14     Will Borland line
11-15 22-18  15x22 25x18   8-11  29-25   4-8  24-20  10-15 25-22 12-16 21-17  8-12 17-14   Maize line
11-15 22-18  15x22 25x18   8-11  29-25  10-14 25-22   7-10 24-19     Annie Gray
11-15 22-18  15x22 25x18   8-11  23-19                  [Tillicoultry]
11-15 22-18  15x22 25x18   9-13  23-19!                 [Will O' The Wisp]
11-15 22-18  15x22 25x18  12-16  18-14                  Lucy Long
11-15 22-18  15x22 25x18  12-16  29-25   9-13           Flora Temple
11-15 22-18  15x22 25x18  12-16  29-25  10-14 24-19  16-20 28-24  8-12 19-15    Single Corner Fife
11-15 22-18  15x22 26x17       26-17 Single Corner     (weak for White; see the historical notes)

11-15 23-18                    Cross
11-15 23-18   8-11 18-14        Waterloo  (or Boston Cross)
11-15 23-18   8-11 26-23         Crescent Cross  (or Witch)
11-15 23-18   8-11 26-23  10-14    Crossing
11-15 23-18   8-11 26-23   9-13    Return Crossing
11-15 23-18   8-11 27-23         Marengo 
11-15 23-18   8-11 27-23   4-8   23-19 10-14  19x10 14x23  26x19  7x14  24-20  6-10    Cross trunk 
11-15 23-18   8-11 27-23  10-14    Short Cross   (historical notes)
11-15 23-18   8-11 27-23  11-16  18x11 16-20   Slip Cross    (historical notes)
11-15 23-18   8-11 27-23  12-16??    Firehouse Cross  (loses: historical notes)
11-15 23-18   9-14             Cross Choice     Little Fork    (historical notes)
11-15 23-18  12-16 18x11      Ryan's Cross      (historical notes)
11-15 23-18  15-19 24x15  10x19    Montrose Cross

11-15 23-19                    Orthodox
11-15 23-19   7-11 22-18  15x22  Whilter Exchange
11-15 23-19   7-11 26-23   3-7   23-18   Whilter Cross
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17         The City Game
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17   3-8   Alma
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17   3-8   25-22  11-16  26-23  7-11  23-18  16x23  17-13   Alma Doctor
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17   4-8   Old Fourteenth
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17   9-13  Laird and Lady     (historical notes)
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17   9-13  17-14  10x17  19x10  7x14   Black Doctor   (historical notes)
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17   9-13  17-14  10x17  21x14          Laird and Lady trunk
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17   9-13  25-22??     Laird and Lady Refused  {loses: see p.93-94 of Lees' Guide}
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17   9-14      Buffalo
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17   9-14  25-22  11-16  26-23    Glasgow-Whilter
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17   9-14  25-22  14-18?     Chicago  {loses}
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17  11-16  Glasgow
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17  11-16  24-20  16x23  27x11  7x16  20x11   3-7   28-24  7x16  24-20  16-19  25-22  4-8  29-25  9-14  22-18  14x23   Martin's Rest
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17  11-16  24-20  16x23  27x11  7x16  20x11   3-7   11-8     African Glasgow
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17  11-16  25-22  16x23  27x11  7x16  32-27   Kentucky Glasgow (historical notes)
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17  11-16  26-23  15-18*    Glasgow Refused (see Cantor)
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-17  15-18  Center
11-15 23-19   8-11 22-18  15x22  Tillicoultry  (or Cuckoo)   (historical notes)
11-15 23-19   8-11 26-23      Nailor     (or New York)   Old Game
11-15 23-19   8-11 27-23         Dodger  (historical notes)     Win Back
11-15 23-19   8-11 27-23   9-14      [Defiance]
11-15 23-19   9-13             Will O' The Wisp
11-15 23-19   9-13 22-18  15x22 25x18   7-11     7-11 line (see A. Schaefer, 1902)
11-15 23-19   9-14 22-17   5-9   Fife
11-15 23-19   9-14 22-17   5-9   17-13  15-18    Chicago Fife
11-15 23-19   9-14 22-17   6-9   Souter     (historical notes)
11-15 23-19   9-14 22-17   6-9   17-13  2-6  25-22  14-17    Pioneer
11-15 23-19   9-14 22-17   7-11  Whilter
11-15 23-19   9-14 22-17  14-18  Sunderland
11-15 23-19   9-14 26-23      Erin
11-15 23-19   9-14 27-23      Defiance   (historical notes)
11-15 23-19  10-14 19x10   6x15  [Virginia]

11-15 24-19  15x24             Second Double Corner      (historical notes)
11-15 24-19  15x24 28x19   8-11  22-17    New Opening
11-15 24-19  15x24 27x20       27-20 Second Double Corner   (historical notes)

11-15 24-20                    Ayrshire Lassie
11-15 24-20   8-11 27-24         Old Paraffin    (historical notes)
11-15 24-20   8-11 28-24         Ayrshire Lassie trunk
11-15 24-20  15-19 23x16  12x19  [Bristol trunk]            

11-16             Bristol
11-16 21-17                     Newcastle   (historical notes)
11-16 21-17   7-11 17-13        Baby Octopus, or Octopus Refused    (historical notes)
11-16 21-17   8-11              Oliver's Twister     (followed by 17-14 in the official ACF designation)
11-16 21-17   9-14 25-21  16-19  Paisley-Dyke
11-16 21-17  10-14 17x10        Shark       150
11-16 22-17                     Leeds        (historical notes)
11-16 22-17   9-13              Wilderness Companion    (historical notes)
11-16 22-17   9-13 17-14  10x17 21x14     [Wilderness 1, or Australian opening]
11-16 22-17   9-14              Cheek
11-16 22-18                     London
11-16 22-18   8-11              Millbury
11-16 22-18   8-11 18-14   9x18  23x14  10x17  21x14        Reverse Header
11-16 22-18   9-13 18-14  10x17  21x14      Reverse Picket (see Aron Zlobinskiy's study in Russian)
11-16 22-18  10-14 25-22       Refused Reverse City Game
11-16 22-18  10-14 25-22       Reverse City Game
11-16 22-18  10-14 25-22   8-11  24-20  16-19  23x16  14x23  26x19  White Doctor
11-16 22-18  10-15 18x11   8x15   Cheetah      150
11-16 23-18                     Bristol Cross
11-16 23-18   7-11              Manchester
11-16 23-18   8-11              New Bristol
11-16 23-18  16-20                 three-move Bristol Cross
11-16 23-18  16-20 24-19        Spanish opening    (see Louriero)
11-16 23-18  16-20 24-19  8-11? 19-15  10x19  18-14   9x18   22x8  4x11  27-24  20x27  31x8    <Canalejas stroke>
11-16 23-19  16x23              Black Widow    (historical notes)
11-16 24-19                     Paisley
11-16 24-19   8-11 22-17       Cheek
11-16 24-19   8-11 22-18 10-14  25-22 16-20  29-25?    Paisley Pickle Barrel
11-16 24-19   8-11 22-18 10-14  26-22 16-20  22-17 7-10  30-26 11-16  26-22   Paisley trunk
11-16 24-19   8-11 22-18  4-8   26-22 16-20    Jaywalker
11-16 24-20   7-11                1970
11-16 24-20   9-13                [original version of Twilight Zone]
11-16 24-20   9-13 20x11  8x15   Liverpool   (much weaker than 7x16 according to Kingsrow)
11-16 24-20  16-19 23x16 12x19   Bristol trunk    Russian Opening  (see Louriero)
11-16 24-20  16-19 23x16 12x19  22-18 8-11?      [Bristol Trap]
11-16 24-20  16-19 23x16 12x19  27-23 8-12*      Knockdown Bristol

12-16             Dundee
12-16 21-17                     Dundee-Switcher
12-16 21-17   9-14              Minotaur
12-16 22-17  
12-16 22-18                     [8-12 Millbury]
12-16 23-18
12-16 23-19  16x23              (historical notes)
12-16 24-19
12-16 24-19   8-12              [Paisley]
12-16 24-20                     Bodyansky's Game
12-16 24-20   8-12              Bonnie Dundee    (historical notes)
12-16 24-20  10-15              Skunk      (historical notes)


Synopsis of Three-Move Openings



The chart above shows all 302 possible three-move opening sequences in Anglo-American checkers.   The opening Black moves are lettered A-G, and White's responses numbered 1-7 (following Kear's 1895 revision of Sturges and Newell Banks' Scientific Checkers).  Letters H-U continue for Black's second move (Rex Wood's extension from the last issue of Wood's Checker Studies, 1939, 2nd edition of number 2); W through # are logical designations for the six forced captures.  There are 216 unique positions.  The 86 transpositions consist of 59 reversed transpositions from swapping Black's first two moves, 11 from outside vectors where a piece moves twice by different routes (e.g. 11-15 22-17 15-19 = 11-16 22-17 16-19, or E2S = F2T), and 16 from inside vectors where a piece moves and a second rank piece takes its place (e.g. 11-16 22-18 8-11 = 12-16 22-18 8-12, or F3M = G3N, the Millbury).  66 of the transpositions (light blue) are equivalent to playable positions; the other 20 (gray) are equivalent to one of the 42 pink openings which lose a piece without compensation, or to another barred opening.  

Openings in boldface are the 156 approved ACF openings; the seven shaded in light orange were added in 1970 or 1994, increasing from 137 to 144; the twelve in green (the Golden Dozen) were added in 2003, increasing to the current 156.  The 18 openings shaded yellow are barred: positions that do not immediately lose a piece, but are nevertheless thought to lose (for Black, except G5).  Modern computer analysis indicates that none of the 18 are drawable, so the current 156 ballots represent all of the sound openings.   The two openings shaded in dark orange were initially barred from two-move restriction, but were later added; both were included in the first set of three-move ballots.   The widely-used ACF system numbers the original 137 ballots in order from 1 (9-13 21-17 5-9 or A1H) to 137 (12-16 24-20 8-12 or G7N).  The additional ballots have been inserted with sub-letters (45C is 10-14 22-17 11-16 or C2F, called Gemini 1; 50C is 10-14 23-19 11-15 or C5E; called Virginia), except the Skunk (12-16 24-20 10-15 or G7D), which is simply called 138 because it is last in order and doesn't require renumbering any existing ballots.

Openings that lose a piece immediately
B1W, C1W -- Black captures 14x21
A4O, A5O, A6O, A7O, C5P, C6P, C7P -- White captures 22x13
C3P -- White captures 21x14
A5G, A6G, B5G, B6G, C5G, C6G, D5G, E5G, G6D, G6E -- White captures 19x12
B2Q -- White captures 23x14
G7T -- White captures 23x16
E5R -- White captures 22x15
D4S -- White captures 24x15
A3H -- 18-15 sets up two-for-one (11x18 23x5 or 10x19 24x15 11x18 23x5)
D1G, D2G, E1G, E2G, G2A, G3D -- 24-19 sets up two-for-one (15x24 28x12, or 13/15x22 19x12 and 22 falls)
B6Q -- three-for-two (22x15 11x18 23x14 10x17 21x14)
D1S -- three-for-two (23x16 12x19 24x15 11x18 22x15)
E1R -- three-for-two (23x14 9x18 22x15 10x19 24x15)
C2G, G1C -- three-for-two (17x10 6x15 24-19 15x24 28x12 or 17x10 7x14 23-18 14x23 26x12)
G3E -- three-for-two (18x11 8x15 24-19 15x24)
B2G, B7G, C7G -- two-for-one (23-18 14x23 26x12)
G4C -- two-for-one (22-17 14x23 26x12)
B7Q -- two-for-one (23x14 10x17 21x14)

In Brazilian, Russian, or Pool checkers, B5D, B6D, C2E, C5E, C6E, D1B, D2B, and E1C (and their reversed transpositions) are untenable, since they allow White a double capture (17x19 or 19x17) with no compensation on the second move (among these, only C2E and C5E are playable in Anglo-American checkers).

Strongest to weakest openings

Strategy guides rank Black's first move in the following order from strongest to weakest, with White's strongest response(s) in parentheses:
Old Faithful 11-15 (23-19 or 22-17 or 22-18)
Double Corner 9-14 (22-18)
Bristol 11-16 (22-18 or 23-18): at one time this was thought superior to the Double Corner for Black.
Kelso 10-15 (21-17)
Denny 10-14 (24-19)
Dundee 12-16 (24-20) [Denny and Dundee are very close, and some sources rank Dundee better, but 12-16 24-20 perhaps puts Black in a worse position than any of the Denny replies.]
Edinburgh 9-13 (22-18): In The Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers (2nd edition), Willie Ryan says of 9-13 22-18: "Black must wage a relentless and faultless defense to dodge disaster."

Best First, Second, and Third Moves

The chart below shows the strongest first, second, and third moves.   The best first (from Black's point of view) and second (from White's) moves are pink (note the darker pink for A3) and yellow, the weakest light green (darker for F5) and blue, along the color scale shown.   Losing moves are light gray for eventual losing positions, and dark gray for immediate losses of a man.  The best move (or sometimes two) for Black in each two-move opening are shown; boldface indicates clearly superior moves (A1 and E1); forced moves are on white backgrounds (including A2); italicized moves (G6) show that all other moves in that two-move opening lose.  This chart, and the two that follow, were compiled as a consensus from a variety of sources: Chamblee, Fortman, Fraser, Gilbert (Kingsrow), Miller, Moiseyev, North Carolina Checkers Association, Pask, Walker, and Wiswell.  Any errors are mine.


Strength of the Three-Move Ballots

The chart below shows the approximate relative strength of the 156 three-move ballots.  Red and orange openings are strongest for Black; Green are strongest for White, along the spectrum (unshaded ballots are balanced).



The Best Fourth Moves


This is an experiment, partly to see how much information can be packed into one chart, partly for my own education, and partly to see how often different sources agree.  I have marked the consensus best move(s) for each of the 156 three-move ballots.  Codes for additional possible White second moves are given in the chart on the right: capital letters for the 4th move indicate the reverse of a Black move (A3FQ indicates the reply 18-14).   Replies marked in green transpose to other ballots (see Pask for details).  Replies in yellow are forced (multiple options indicate double X exchanges).  Replies in pink are star moves, in this case the only move for White to draw (there are only two of these: B4 and F5).  For a number of ballots, there is a clear consensus among the human sources: I have used that even where Kingsrow prefers a different move (light blue).  In some cases two moves are given when there is a split opinion (sometimes there is a choice between a transposition and an independent line).  Again, all errors are mine.

Appendix 2: Historical Notes on Some Individual Openings

These are listed in numerical order, from 9-13 to 12-16, except for a few openings which are grouped together.   Green highlighted moves in the text yield the diagrammed positions in each opening.

The Dreaded Edinburgh



To some degree, the entire 9-13 22-18 opening is dreaded for Black: it's the best White response to the worst Black opening, and there aren't any pleasant second moves for Black (12-16 is the least unpleasant of the six playable ballots, followed by 10-15).  But the name Dreaded Edinburgh has become attached to the specific three-move ballot 9-13 22-18 6-9 (diagram above; ACF ballot 4, or A3I): about as good as 11-16, and better than 10-14 and 11-15.   25-22 is regarded as the strongest response (diagram above): Alex Battersby, in the book of the 1910 Fifth International Match, says: "18-14 again throws away any advantage White has in the opening".   25-22 gives only two tenable Black replies.  The older move is 11-15 18x11 8x15*, which leaves White two moves which keep the advantage: 24-20 or 23-18 (Pask does not cover this line at all, and Ryan only mentions it, but see Fortman for detailed analysis).   The other possibility is 1-6, possibly introduced by R.T. Ward in the 1910 Scotland vs. England match (Kear).   This has the difficulty that White has many attacks ("all requiring detailed knowledge" (Fortman)): the most often played is 30-25, best met by 11-15.   [In Russian checkers, where it is known as the Reverse Win Back, backwards capturing allows the common continuation 9-13 18x9 13x6.]

The superiority of 25-22 is is not a universal view: 18-14 is often played, and Ryan analyzes both in the 2nd edition of The Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers, as does Fortman in Basic Checkers.   It is followed by a forced double exchange, after which 12-16 is probably best for Black, although 11-15 and 1-6 both draw.)   A third playable alternative is 26-22, transposing to 9-13 23-18; 6-9 26-23 (A4Id).

The Inferno



In the 1930's, analyst John T. Bradford showed play on the opening 9-13 22-18 10-14 (followed by the forced captures 18x9 5x14) to Louis Ginsberg and A.J. Heffner, who were on the committee drawing up the initial list of playable three-move ballots.  Bradford's play seemed to show a White win, and the opening was removed from the initial list of candidates under consideration (for which Bradford felt responsible).   He later collaborated with John T. Denvir to show drawing lines in both Denvir's Guide (1934) and Denvir's Three Move Guide (1936), but some of the analysis was faulty, and it took two-thirds of a century for the ballot to finally be reinstated, under the name The Inferno (ACF ballot 4A, or A3C). 

It is rated as one of the hardest Black three-move ballots, and the trunk was still evolving even as it was on the verge of acceptance in the late 1990's.  The best attack for White seems to be 9-13 22-18; 10-14 18x9; 5x14 26-22 (diagram above), after which various lines have been tried.   Cayton's 1997 Compilation recommended 7-10, but later analysis showed a loss after 22-17*; 13x22 25x9; 6x13 29-25 (even Chinook missed the winning line).  It turns out that 6-9* is the only drawing move, originally recommended in the 1934 Guide, but in the 1936 Three Move Guide they switched to 1-5, which turns out to lose to 24-19.   Another solid move on White's third is 25-22: only 1-15* draws.   (See Pask's Complete Checkers: Repertoire for more detailed analysis of the various lines).   The apparently similar opening 9-13 23-18 10-14 18x9 5x14, was unofficially named Inferno 2, but proved untenable, failing against three different attacks: 27-23, 24-19, and 22-17.

The Henderson



Widely considered the second best reply to the Edinburgh 22-18 opening, 9-13 22-18 10-15 is named after Hugh Henderson, a noted analyst who developed a lot of the play on the opening (Kear, on p. 410, credits a line in note V to "H. Henderson, whose many studies have elucidated this line".)   Henderson was also a strong player, originally from Scotland, who won the Second and Third American Tourneys in 1912 and 1915, edited the checkers column in the Pittsburgh Leader, and has a shot (see Ryan's Tricks, Traps, and Shots) and an endgame (Henderson's Draw) named after him.   One common option for White is to play 18-14, transposing into the trunk of opening 69: 10-15 22-17 9-13 17-14.   But the trunk of the Henderson proper, dating back to the 19th century, is 25-22; 6-10 23-19; 11-16 18x11; 16x23 27x18; 8x15 18x11; 7x16 22-18 (diagram above).  This is a solid line which is still recommended today (see Pask): Open Checker Archive has 65 games played with this variation.  At this point 4-8 is the dominant move, and almost a star move: the rarely played 3-7 is possibly the only other drawing move.

In the go-as-you-please days, 5-9 was sometimes played instead of 6-10 (Lees: "a favorite line with some players, but it leads to a weak endgame"), but was mostly abandoned because of the reply 29-25 (Kear: "After this, only the sport of being chased."), and there is little published play.   Kingsrow rates this as an extremely hard draw: all of Black's options here probably lose except 6-10* (11-16 is unclear): after 18-14 and the double exchange 9x18 23x14; 10x17 21x14, Shearer's Modern Draughts Handbook plays 15-18 here, which probably loses.  John B. Stiles revived this line twice in the 1934 Nationals, playing the correct 11-16 instead of 15-18, and eventually getting a win and a loss.   The Henderson is considered a hard ballot for Black, but much less so than several of the other Edinburgh ballots.

The Edinburgh Single

             

This early exchange in the Edinburgh opening (9-13 22-18 11-15 18x11) is one of the most difficult three-move openings: H. F. Shearer believed it to be a loss for Black (Studies of the Two-Move Openings, pp. 67-68), and it was still in doubt in 1926 (Morris-Systems Checkerist, Vol. 4, Num. 3, p.60).   Later analysis found that Black could draw, and it was one of the 137 three move ballots in 1934 (ACF number 6, or A3E).  The trunk line is 9-13 22-18 11-15 18x11 8x15* (diagram above) [7x16 loses to 25-22 (see Fortman)].  Ryan analyzes this opening in detail in the 2nd edition Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers.  Richard Pask and Jerry Childers rate this as the hardest ballot for Black; Brian Hinkle puts it second only to the Black Hole.  The official ACF rankings have it about equal with the Inferno (9-13 22-18 10-14 18x9 5x14) as Black's hardest.  [Technically, the compound name should refer to the two-move opening 9-13 22-18, but it has become associated with this particular three-move opening.]   Some older publications (e.g. The Draughts Review: see Volume 3, Number 8, April 1932, p. 59) call the 8x15 line the Liverpool opening, but Frank Dunne used Liverpool to refer to a related opening, the 8x15 capture in the Twilight Zone.

The Wilderness Openings

    

Three closely related openings, which share the same two opening moves for Black, were long thought to be losses for Black.   The first two are now known as Wilderness 1 (9-13 22-18 11-16, A3F) and Wilderness 2 (9-13 23-18 11-16, A4F); the third is the Wilderness Companion (11-16 22-17 9-13, F2A; called Oldbury's Offering in Pask's The Golden Dozen).  Frank Wendemuth analyzed Wilderness 1 in his 1922 Checker Companion, believing it to be a loss (Kear says "A draw after this is doubtful").  Denvir's 1936 Three Move Guide to Checkers, however, gives play by A.M. Peteck (pp. 79-80) suggesting that Black can draw.  Marion Tinsley thought Wilderness 2 to be a loss for Black (Pask's The Golden Dozen, p.50), but a defense involving many star moves was found.    The best attack in the first two is 18-14 10x17 21x14, leading to similar very strong positions for White (diagrams above).  The corresponding attack in the Wilderness Companion (17-14 10x17 21x14) transposes directly to the same position in Wilderness 1 (above left).   [Other White second moves transpose to easier lines for Black.]   In Wilderness 2, 6-9* is the only move to draw; in Wilderness 1 6-9 is best, but 16-20 also draws (see analysis in Pask's The Golden Dozen or Repertoire).   [6-9* 22-18 in Wilderness 2 transposes to 6-9 23-18 in Wilderness 1.]    All three were among the 12 ballots added in 2003 by the ACF to three-move restriction (as 6A, 11A, and 111A respectively); analysts Brian Hinkle and George Miller rate all three among the 10 hardest ballots for Black.   The trunk line of Wilderness 1 (or Companion) is also a common opening in Brazilian draughts (IDF 10 XXVII), where it is known as the Australian opening (see the bilingual Portuguese/English book by Alexander Louriero); of course the analysis diverges because of backwards captures: 16-20 is the dominant fourth move for Black.

The Garter Snake and various Rattlesnakes



The opening 9-13 23-19 10-15 19x10 (A5D) was named the Garter Snake by Richard Fortman (see the booklet of the 2002 Inter-District Mail Tourney), for its similarity to the barred Rattlesnake.   It was one of the 36 three-move ballots originally rejected when the first American Restriction of 150 ballots was approved in 1931.   After years of analysis,  it was approved for mail play in 1989, and added as part of the last set of ballots (ACF 15A) in 2003.   Despite taking decades to find it tenable, it is not even rated among the 40 hardest ballots.  In The Golden Dozen, Pask says: "...with correct play, Black appears to be presented with few real endgame problems."    After 19x10, Black has a choice of captures, but 6x15 (diagram above) is much stronger (7x14 was shown by Kingsrow to be a difficult draw).   White's two strongest attacks after 6x15 are 22-18 and 26-23 (which is the same as a milder branch of the Black Hole).   Other than Pask, there isn't any analysis in the major reference works.

The Rattlesnake, 9-14 23-19 10-15 19x10 6x15, despite its similarity to its Edinburgh cousin, remains barred; the White move 22-18* is followed by a two-for-two exchange 15x22 (or 14x23) 26x10 7x14, and 27-23* wins against all Black defenses.   It was approved for mail play, but no draw for Black was found.  There is also a Denny opening called Rattlesnake 2, 10-14 24-19 11-15 19x10 6x15, which fails against the attack 22x17* (22-18 here would allow a draw).  [Both of these Rattlesnakes would allow a double capture 19x17 in American Pool after 6x15.]    The opening 9-14 24-19 10-15 reaches the exact same position as the Rattlesnake after the same sequence of moves, but ending in 27-24 (25-22 would also win).   All three of these openings were also rejected in 1931, and remain barred.  Details of attempts to find draws in these openings can be found in Dennis C. Cayton's Compilation of the Barred Openings.

The New Edinburgh



Another of the 12 three-move openings barred after 1931, 9-13 24-19 10-14 does not seem to have an official name.   It was little played before three-move days, but Shearer's Modern Draughts Handbook gives two games (both drawn) between J. Archer and J. Ferguson in a correspondence tournament which ran from 1907-1911.   Eugene Frazier called it The New Edinborough in an analysis in Master Checkers (Volume 1, Number 3, September 1973, p. 8), and Fortman spelled it New Edinboro in Midwest Checkers (Volume 1, Number 1, p.8) so it is reasonable to call it (using the standard spelling) the New Edinburgh.  It had been approved for mail play as early as 1968, but was not officially added until 1994 (along with the Virginia, the last two additions before the Golden Dozen).  It is ACF ballot 18A (A6C); Fortman describes it as "unjustly barred for almost 40 years".   The White attack 22-18 was at one time thought sufficient to win, but Black can reply 5-9 with a playable position (diagram above).  White's best is 25-22 (then only 6-10* maintains a draw), with several good attacks available (see Fortman and Pask).   Instead of 5-9, 6-10 transposes to a line of the Inferno (see Game 20 in Denvir's Guide to Checkers, pp. 92-93) or Nemesis (from an 1894 Ferrie-Wyllie game) and a difficult draw; 7-10 probably loses after 18x9; 5x14 25-22*; 3-7 27-24* (Kingsrow's move correcting a PP draw with 29-25); 11-15 24-20*.  Analysts rate the New Edinburgh about as difficult as the Henderson.

The Twilight Zone



Another of the Edinburgh ballots added in the Golden Dozen (ACF 25A), 9-13 24-20 11-16 was analyzed and named Twilight Zone by Dennis Cayton.  (Originally the transposition 11-16 24-20 9-13 was used as the ballot).   In Cayton's Compilation, after the forced capture 20x11, only the natural 8x15 capture toward the center was analyzed.  Richard Pask, in The Golden Dozen, recommended the 7x16 capture, which he says "has significantly eased Black's defensive task" (diagram above).  Both captures are playable, but it is still among the most difficult ballots for Black.   (As noted above, 7x16 loses in the related Edinburgh Single opening.)  Frank Dunne, in his Guide and Companion, gave the name Liverpool to the 8x15 line (in the original move order 11-16 24-20 9-13 20x11 8x15).   The IDF ballot 21 V uses the older transposition, with a second ballot 22 V continuing 20x11 8x15 23-18 (one of White's strongest responses, along with 22-17).

The Bronx Express



This reply to the Double Corner opening (9-14 22-18 5-9 18-15) was named and analyzed by Willie Ryan in his 1938 booklet Streamlined Checkers.   Ryan claims White has an even game and "the greater number of winning chances".   The capture 11x18 is strongest for Black: White should follow with 21-17*, regaining the piece after 14x21 23x5 (diagram above).   I can't find any published play on the alternate capture 10x19 (IDF ballot 1 XXV in Brazilian), which gives a somewhat similar position after 24x15; 11x18 21-17; 14x21 23x5 (Black has only a slight edge according to Kingsrow).   Most opening guides omit 18-15, or only mention it in passing.  Tescheleit's 1927 Master Play Part 2 has some analysis of 21-17 (var. 29, p.127) on White's second move, which transposes after 14x21 18-15; 11x18 23x5; he calls it "Very weak; weakest of the 2's for 2, an unexplored 4-move."  Kear's Encyclopaedia gives one variation on p.355 (var. 64), but says: "A.B. Scott thinks it quite good.  It has been little explored."   Modern analysis holds it as "hazardous" (Fortman and Pask) for White, but definitely drawable.

The Double Cross



In the early days of two-move restriction, 9-14 23-18 was one of the six barred openings, but was later added when viable defenses were found; it was played eight times in the 1924 Sixth American Tourney.   Double Cross is one of the compound names still in use (9-14 Double Corner, 23-18 Cross reply).   By the time of three-move restriction, it was well established, and 9-14 23-18 14x23 was one of the initial 150 (and later 137) ballots (ACF ballot 34, or B4X; IDF 14-17 XXIII in Brazilian draughts).   It is still widely considered to be the most difficult three-move ballot for either side.

After 9-14 23-18; 14x23, White has a choice of captures, 27x18 or 26x19.   In Scientific Checkers, Banks analyzes only 27x18, but in a footnote says "26-19 opens up some beautiful play".   Later analysis established, however, that 26x19 loses to 11-16.  After 27x18, Black's strongest move is probably 12-16, requiring two star moves by White: 12-16 18-14*; 10x17 21x14* (diagram above).   On Black's third move, 5-9 is also strong: at one time 26-23 was thought necessary to hold a draw, but Ed Gilbert found a very difficult draw with Kingsrow after 5-9 24-20 (the status of 5-9 21-17 is unclear).

The Dubious Denny



In the late 19th century, 22-17 was considered the strongest reply to 10-14 (see Kear's 1895 revision of Sturges), and the trunk 10-14 22-17; 7-10 17-13; 3-7 25-22; 14-17 21x14 9x25 29x22 (diagram above) dates back at least to Kear (and possibly to John Drummond, who first analyzed it and named 22-17 the Denny).   It can also be found in the earliest edition of Lees I have seen, the improved 9th edition (by J. Richards) in 1907, and all the way to modern works by Fortman and Pask.   (The alternate capture 10x17 instead of 9x25 loses for Black and isn't even mentioned in opening guides).   At this point, older guides give 10-14 as the trunk, but modern play recommends 11-15.   There is a sound alternate line with 24-20 instead of 25-22, given as trunk by Tescheleit and Miller among others, and preferred by Kingsrow.

As a three move ballot, 10-14 22-17 7-10 (ACF ballot 45, or C2K) was analyzed and named the Dubious Denny by Walter Hellman.  A major alternate line is 11-15 instead of 3-7, recommended by Derek Oldbury, which can transpose into a variation of the Souter better for Black after 23-19 2-7, but the stronger reply 25-22 makes 8-11* necessary.   Kear gives (variation 60, p. 274) 24-20 2-7, which is probably Black's strongest reply, but Fortman incorrectly labels 4-8 instead of 2-7 as a loss, attempting to correct Tescheleit (variation 21P, p. 174), but makes a losing capture [4-8 20-16; 12x19 23x7; 2x11 29-25; 3-7 27-24; 15-19 24x15; 11x18? 22x15 10x19 31-27* wins, but the correct capture is 10x19 first.]    Carl Reno gives 4-8 as the trunk and analyzes it in some detail in The Work of the Pentium, showing it to be a playable line.   Kingsrow recommends (in the 11-15 line) that White bypass the entire 24-20 line, with a sequence that does not seem to appear in published play: 8-11 24-19; 15x24 27x20 (26x19 has been played, transposing to other lines of the Denny).   10-15* is then necessary, and after 22-18; 15x22 26x10; 6x15 13x6; 2x9 (1x10 probably loses), White has a better position than the other main lines (Kingsrow is still in its opening book and has more analysis).

The Black Hole



Another of the most difficult three-move ballots for Black, 10-14 22-17 9-13 (ACF 45A) was named The Black Hole because of the three empty squares in Black's position after the captures 17x10 and 6x15* (diagram above).   [It became the third opening to share a name with a common card solitaire, after Will O' The Wisp and Bristol.]    The alternate capture 7x14 is known to lose to 25-22 (24-20 may also win).   Like The Inferno, the trunk was changing as it was being proposed for adoption.   After White's third move 25-22, Cayton's Compilation recommended 5-9, but eventually that was found to lose.  A defense found by Chinook, 15-19*, was found to be the only viable move: several star moves in a row from Kingsrow's opening book rescue a line previously given as a loss: 15-19* 24x15; 11x25 29x22; 8-11 22-18; 1-6 28-24; 6-10* 24-19; 11-16* 26-22; 4-8*.   If White plays 26-22 instead of 25-22, it transposes into the Garter Snake.   The Black Hole was the last three-move ballot to be approved: a chart by Brian Hinkle which dates from the early 2000's lists every opening in order: 10-14 22-17 9-13 (60th of 174) was among 19 openings still believed to be losses at the time.

Tinsley's Denny (The Denny Dodger)



The opening 10-14 22-17 11-15 17x10 7x14 (diagram above) does not seem to have been recorded before the three-move era: the earliest games in the Open Checkers Archive are from the 1989 Inter-District Mail Tourney (mostly under the transposition 11-15 22-17 10-14).   It was one of the 12 ballots initially approved in 1931, but dropped before 1934.   It was one of eight openings suggested in 1952 by Marion Tinsley as potentially drawable (see Diabolical Denny below), and Pask calls it Tinsley's Denny in The Golden Dozen.  Its official ACF name is the Denny Dodger (ballot 45B), but as there is another well-known opening called the Dodger, naming it after Tinsley seems preferable.   Analysis can be found in Pask (either The Golden Dozen or Repertoire); it seems to be one of the least often discussed of the Golden Dozen.   It's only a mildly difficult ballot for Black, barely cracking the top 50.   After the exchange, several attacks have been tried: 23-18 triggers a double exchange; 26-22 is recommended in The 1st 20 Best Moves; Pask recommends the exchange with 24-19.   It's one of only two tenable ballots in Anglo-American checkers which fails in American Pool (to the double capture 17x19).

Gemini 1 and 2



Two closely related openings are named Gemini 1 (10-14 22-17 11-16 17x10) and Gemini 2 (10-15 23-19 11-16 19x10).  Oddly, the 1931 committee failed to see the similarity between the two: Gemini 1 was rejected when the 150 American Restriction ballots were approved, while Gemini 2 was initially selected, but was among the 12 ballots dropped to reduce to 138.  After decades of analysis and mail play, both ballots were approved in 2003 as part of the Golden Dozen: Gemini 1 (ACF 45C; C2F) and Gemini 2 (ACF 79A; D5F).  Both are rated as very hard ballots, but not among the very hardest (Brian Hinkle rates them about the same as the Dreaded Edinburgh).

In both openings, Black can capture 6x15 or 7x14, but analysis showed that 7x14 loses in both cases: 7x14 25-22 is best in Gemini 1, although other moves also win for White; 7x14 22-17* wins in Gemini 2.   After 6x15*, White's best in Gemini 1 is 23-18; this gives the same position in Gemini 2 if White plays 22-18 (also recommended), followed in both by the forced capture 15x22 (diagram above).    White should capture 25x18 to maintain an advantage (26x17 leads to an even position); Black should reply 7-10 or 1-6 (16-20 is a difficult draw, and other moves lose).    There are alternate lines where the openings diverge (and sometimes converge again!), but these are less advantageous for White (see Pask's The Golden Dozen, and Cayton's Compilation).

The Heebie-Jeebies



An opening with a long history, played in the Martins-Wyllie match in 1867, is 10-14 22-17 14-18 23x14 9x18 (diagram above).  Despite being quite a difficult ballot for Black, the move 14-18 has a good reputation.  Lees' Guide (p. 45) says "Quite as good as 7-10, and admits of a great variety of play."   Shearer's The Modern Draughts Handbook (p. 194) says: "may prove the most satisfactory defence."   In go-as-you-please or two-move, 10-15 22-17 15-18 also transposes.  Although it has no official name, Derek Oldbury named it the Heebie-Jeebies, a pun on the moves in his oddball notation from Move Over (see Pask's Insights, p. 83).   There is an interesting account in One Jump Ahead (p. 153-156) of two games played by Chinook vs. James Morrison (White won both games).   Since it was well-established in go-as-you-please days, it was one of the original three-move ballots (ACF number 46, C2Q), and is covered in all the comprehensive three-move guides.   In addition to the standard sources, there are long analyses in Ryan's 2nd edition Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers (pp. 106-122) and Fraser's The Inferno of Checkers (pp. 116-127, with new analysis by Arza B. Fogle, and an Addendum on pp. 211-212 by Walter Hellman).   The strongest attacks for White are 26-23 (against which only 6-9* draws) and 17-13 (5-9 best; 11-16 probably draws also).

Fraser's Inferno



Another of the 12 ballots removed after 1931 but suggested by Tinsley in 1952 for reinstatement (see Diabolical Denny), 10-14 22-18 7-10 (diagram above) was played in the go-as-you-please era, but seemed to wane in the two-move era, and is barely mentioned in early published play.   Canadian master W.R. Fraser tried it twice, unsuccessfully, against Tom Wiswell in their 1960 Go-As-You-Please World Championship match, and named it Fraser's Inferno (it does not appear in his book The Inferno of Checkers, which had already been published). Wiswell played a forcing line which is perhaps White's strongest attack: 25-22; 11-16* 29-25; 8-11* 18-15; 11x18* 22x15; 10x19 24x15 (see Pask, and p. 146 of Fortman).   The opening was adopted as an ACF ballot (47A, C3K) in 1970.   As far as I know there is no connection with the Edinburgh Inferno.

The White Doctor

    

As originally defined, the White Doctor is: 11-16 22-18; 10-14 25-22; 8-11 24-20; 16-19* 23x16; 14x23* 26x19 (diagram above left).  This appears in games 45 and 46 in Payne [with White moving first; the analysis here reverses the colors in Payne's examples].  The White Doctor has drawn the attention of analysts since its introduction, and appears in the major go-as-you-please guides.  Call's Vocabulary cites a move called King's Invention, a winning move played by J. King against James Wyllie (seen in variation 11 in Lees' Guide).  But the line in which this move was played was already a winning position for White at least seven moves earlier: in fact this was game 45 in Payne, who did not realize that 4-8 in the position above left loses for Black (best is 6-10), and after 31-26 6-10 27-23 Black should be getting crushed.  But White plays 21-17 instead of the correct 23-18* (as in Lees) and lets Black off with a draw.  (In game 46 plays 22-17 instead of 27-23, resulting in another drawn position).    The first detailed analysis was by Matthew Atkinson in his 1892 pamphlet The White and Coloured Doctors, showing that Black could draw.   What Atkinson names the Coloured Doctor is a variation from the Double Corner: 9-14 22-18; 5-9 25-22; 11-16 24-20; 16-19 23x16; 14x23 26x19; 8-11: in this branch the sacrifice 16-19 is not necessary for Black to draw (and 24-20 isn't even White's best third move).  

The White Doctor is a notoriously difficult opening: we list it here among the Denny openings because it develops most naturally from the formerly barred three-move ballot 10-14 22-18 12-16 (ACF 49A, C3G), rated among the hardest for Black.  White's powerful reply 24-20 forces Black to sacrifice a piece with the star move 16-19*, followed by a series of exchanges: 23x16; 14x23 26x19; and another star move 8-12* (diagram above right: 25-22 would then produce the same position as above left).  The arrowhead of pieces at 16/19/20 resembles the similar formation at 13/14/17 in the Black Doctor.   The White Doctor can also occur from the similar ballot 10-14 22-18 11-16, after 25-22 8-11 24-20 (see Wiswell and Shuffett's America's Best Checkers, p. 122, game 87), 10-14 22-18 6-10 (see Fortman), or the Millbury (11-16 22-18; 10-14 25-22; 8-11 24-20).   [In the original move order from 11-16 22-18 10-14 (or from ballot 49), the strongest play bypasses the White Doctor entirely: 26-22 may be better than 25-22, and if White does play 25-22, Black should prevent the White Doctor by playing 16-20.]   As shown in the diagrams, older versions of the White Doctor (including transpositions) usually have an early 25-22 move by White.   Modern analysis of 49A suggests holding off 25-22 until later, which was once thought to produce a winning line for White (see Fortman), leading to the opening being barred until 1970.  A contemporary analysis is in endgame expert Ben Boland's only book on opening theory, White and Black Doctors.   Pask's Repertoire shows a game played all the way through a Tinsley-Long endgame.

In the 1992 Man-Machine match against Marion Tinsley, Chinook was playing White in the White Doctor opening, and lost after it tried a new move on White's 10th move.  In 2005, a stronger version of Chinook was able to prove that the 10-14 22-18 12-16 opening was a draw with best play, the first step in its plan to prove that the opening position in checkers is a draw in go-as-you-please.   Ed Trice wrote The Notorious White Doctor Opening, for the first issue of Draughts Razoo (Summer/Autumn 2003, pp. 6-7), describing the process by which computers analyze difficult positions.

The Denny Exchange



Another formerly barred two-move opening, 10-14 23-18 14x23 (ACF ballot 50, or C4X) was eventually found to be the easiest of the six for White.  The trunk is 10-14 23-18; 14x23 27x18; 12-16 32-27; 16-20 26-23 (diagram above), recommended in the three standard references (Kear, Fortman, and Pask), and played in 13 of the 14 games in the 1924 Sixth American Tourney (scoring an even 2-2-9).   The rarely played alternate capture 26x19 makes a much harder draw for White (Shearer, Tescheleit, Kear, and Fortman analyze several lines).

The Diabolical Denny



Played occasionally in the go-as-you-please and two-move eras, 10-14 23-19 7-10 has more than 80 games in the Open Checker Archive, and its companion opening 10-14 23-19 6-10 more than 50.   Both date back to the late 19th century, though there is little published play from that era.   6-10 has a couple of lines of analysis in Kear (var. 50, p. 303), and one game in Wood's Checker Studies 7 (p.43, Game 9).   Both openings were included in the 150 three-move ballots in 1931 (though the latter was listed under a little-played transposition 9-14 23-19 6-9), but were dropped in the reduction to 138 ballots.  In Elam's Checker Board (v6 n4, April 1952, p. 1825), Marion Tinsley suggested that both openings (along with six others) had the potential to be drawn, though he offered no analysis beyond suggesting that White's best attack in both was 19-15.

The variation 10-14 23-19 7-10 19-15, was named the Wolfville in GAYP days by William Forsyth of Nova Scotia, in honor of players in that town; it is followed by a double X exchange (diagram above).   In the companion opening 10-14 23-19 6-10, 19-15 gives Black a choice of captures.   Eventually tenable defenses were found for Black: the trunk lines are 10-14 23-19; 6-10 19x15; 10x19 24x15; 11x18 22x15; 7-11 (the Hellman Defense) and 10-14 23-19; 7-10 19x15; 10x19 24x15; 11x18 22x15; 3-7 (developed by Karl Albrecht; 8-11 is common also).  See Fortman and Pask for details and other lines.  In the 7-10 opening, Kingsrow prefers a move which does not seem to have been played: 2-7 instead of 3-7.   They were two of the five openings added to the official ACF ballots in 1970 (6-10 as 50-A, and 7-10 as 50-B), and 7-10 was named the Diabolical Denny.   6-10 sadly does not seem to have a name.

The Virginia



In the 1874 Recreationist, the opening 11-15 23-19 10-14 19x10 6x15 (diagram above) was named the Virginia.   Janvier includes the name in his 1881 revision of Sturges (not Anderson, as cited in Call and Fortman) and Dunne in his 1890 Guide and Companion, but neither gives an example.   Fortman and Pask say it was played occasionally in go-as-you-please, but I can only find a few lines, credited to C.H. Irving (with the modern move order 10-14 23-19 11-15) in Janvier's 1881 revision of Anderson.  As 10-14 23-19 11-15 (C5E), it was one of the 12 openings originally included in the 150 American Restriction openings in 1931, but removed when the list was reduced to 138 before the 1934 National Tourney.  It isn't found in most older sources, but Tescheleit gives some analysis on p. 206 of Master Play.  

It was on the path to being approved when Fortman was writing Basic Checkers, and he includes analysis under its official designation as 50-C.   Fortman thought it might be approved for the 1982 National Tourney (it had already been approved for mail play, and appeared in several Inter-District Mail Tournaments), but according to the sources I checked, it was officially approved in 1994 (and the name Virginia retained) along with 9-13 24-19 10-14, when the number of ballots increased to 144.   After the forced captures, White has many viable attacks: the most common and perhaps strongest is 22-18 (see Pask's comments on p. 56 of Insights), giving a choice of captures on both sides (this line is nowadays called the Grand Canyon Attack, for the gaping hole it leaves in both players' positions (it can also occur from the Gemini 1 opening: see Cayton's Compilation).  All five resulting positions are playable, but 26x10 after either Black capture lets White keep the advantage; Black might as well play 14x23, hoping for 27x11 8x15.  Tescheleit recommended 22-17 14-18* 17-14, as did Oldbury in Move Over (see Pask and White's Supplement), while Fortman gives 26-23 as the trunk.   Despite being banned for over half a century, the opening, though definitely favoring White, is not among the most difficult for Black.   It's one of only two tenable ballots in Anglo-American checkers which fails in American Pool (to the double capture 19x17).

The Nemesis



An important opening since the two-move era, 10-14 24-19 6-10 (ACF 53, C6J) is nowadays considered the best line for both players in the Denny opening (it is the trunk in Kear's Encyclopaedia, p.304).   Maurice Chamblee named it the Nemesis in Ryan's American Checkerist, and later lost to Walter Hellman with it in their world championship match in 1951.   (I don't know whether Murray Cash's computer program was named after it).   The strongest attack for White is 22-17 (diagram above), to which there are only two tenable replies: the preferred defense has historically swung from 9-13 to 11-15, and back to 9-13 again, but both are quite playable.   Kingsrow's five-move ratings suggest 11-15 is better for Black, but Pask says it "leads to a highly spindly Black position".  Other moves for White are 22-18, 28-24 (both best met with 11-15), and 27-24 (best met with 11-16); these can transpose into other ballots.   In two-move play, Nemesis can also arise from 9-14 24-19 6-9, or 9-14 22-17 6-9 24-19.

The Albion



Albion is a poetic name for England (used in Shakespeare among others), which the Recreationist used as a name for the opening 10-15 21-17; 6-10 17-13; 1-6 (diagram above).  The name is no longer in wide use (though Fortman mentions it), although it was a reasonably common line in the Kelso, even in the go-as-you-please era (Lees' Guide has it as Variation 11, one of the principal variations; 11-16 instead of 6-10 was the trunk).   It was less common in the two-move era (since weaker replies to 10-15 were just as common as the superior 21-17), but 6-10 still remained the second most popular choice after 11-16.  In Kear's Encyclopaedia, it is still the most principal variation, number 51, but with the footnote about 17-13: "Perhaps best, but the experts prefer 17-14".   Indeed, in the three-move era, 17-14 has become the dominant reply in ballot 62 (D1J), though both Fortman and Pask also analyze 17-13 as a variation.  17-14 is the most often played and most effective move for White in the Open Checkers Archive statistics.

The main line of the Albion in go-as-you-please days, and carried through the two-move era, is 10-15 21-17; 6-10 17-13; 1-6 23-18; 12-16 24-20; 16-19 25-21; 8-12 27-24; 3-8 31-27; 9-14* (11-16 and 12-16 both lose).   Pask in Variation 12 plays 11-16 instead of 12-16.  Fortman prefers 22-18 to 23-18, but analyzes both lines.   Fortman's note M on 1-6 says it is the only sound reply (Lees and Kear don't even give any alternate lines), and claims 9-14 may lose after 22-18; 15x22 25x9; 5x14 13-9 ("any [Black] draw is problematical").   Kingsrow analyzes 9-14 as a very difficult but definite draw for Black, and includes an extended opening book on the line (it prefers 29-25 instead of 13-9 as the main variation).

The Octopus

   

Regarded as one of the most difficult of the three-move ballots for Black, 10-15 21-17 7-10 (ACF ballot 63, or D1K) was named the Octopus by Willie Ryan.   It was rarely played under two-move restriction (it's also possible as 11-15 21-17 7-11), as the early move of the apex piece 7-10 was considered very weak.  Banks in Scientific Checkers does not mention it; Tescheleit barely so in volume 4 of Master Play, calling it a doubtful draw, but he only gives 9-14 or 3-7 at Black's fourth.   The strongest attack for White is the trunk 10-15 21-17; 7-10 17-14; 10x17* 22x13; with 11-16* being Black's only move to draw (diagram above left).  9-14 was already considered to be a losing move (24-20* wins) by the late 1930's (see John G. Finley's analysis in the May 1938 Games Digest, pp. 45-46), while players still held out hope for 3-7 much longer (25-21* wins).  Alexander in the 4th edition of Kear's Encyclopaedia gives a few variations on p. 209, but says "I doubt a draw after this".  He does correctly assess 9-14 a loss and gives 11-16 as "Best chance for a draw".  Willie Ryan opens the game section of his 1940 book, The Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers, with 27 pages of analysis on the 11-16 Octopus (slightly expanded in the 2nd edition), calling it Battleground of the Analysts.  He credits A.J. Mantell as the main analyst, with help from Ryan and others.  

Ryan says that the alternate capture 9x18 probably loses, and offered to play White against any player for $5, with Black only needing to draw.  This was still being analyzed at least as late as 1980 (e.g. Sam Schonbach, Midwest Checkers, vol. 2, pp. 97, 109), but conclusive analysis by Kingsrow confirms Ryan's claim.  There is further analysis in Big League Checkers.  Fortman points out in Basic Checkers that White replies other than 17-14 allow transpositions into easier lines.

The Octopus can also occur from the ballot 11-16 21-17 7-11 (ACF 105, or F1L): if White replies 17-14 10x17 22x13, every Black reply loses except 11-15*, which transposes into the Octopus trunk (see Moiseyev's Sixth, Game 48, pp. 344-349, for a deeply analyzed game).   Instead White can also play 17-13, called the Octopus Refused or Baby Octopus; here 3-7* is Black's only saving move (above right).   Both the standard and Baby Octopus ballots barely survived the same vote in 1937 which eliminated the Nutcracker (see part 2 of Cayton's history in the Keystone Checker Review, vol. 5, num. 1, pp. 659-662, Jan 1994).

The Tyne



Another very difficult ballot for Black, 10-15 21-17 9-13 was named the Tyne in the May 1869 Draught Board (Call).   Despite its age, it was not played much until the three-move era.  It does not appear in Kear's Encyclopaedia, and Lees' Guide mentions it only in a footnote giving a transposition to a line of the Boston: 10-15 21-17; 9-13 17-14; 15-18 (Fortman calls this the Frazier defense) 22x15; 11x18, transposing to 11-15 22-17; 9-13 17-14; 10x17 21x14; 15-18.    Tescheleit in Master Play calls 9-13 weak, but gives several variations.

After White's second move 17-14 (diagram above; undoubtedly strongest), Black is subjected to many possible attacks.   Notable players including Nathan Rubin and Newell Banks felt this move should win for White (see Cayton's history as noted above under the Octopus).  Wood's Checker Studies (Vol. 4, March 1935, Study number 49, pp. 16-18) analyzes several lines, giving 6-10 as the trunk for Black's third move.   Of 11-16, he says: "A line that must be improved or abandoned as untenable."  He also gives the Boston transposition ("a weak line").   In his 1943 Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers, Willie Ryan reverses Wood's conclusion, calling 11-16 "in my opinion, black's only move to draw".   11-16 is now the trunk, although 15-18 and 6-10 are also draws, as well as Kingsrow's preferred move, 6-9 (Tescheleit gives two lines on 6-9, both winning for White; Pask has some 6-9 analysis in Repertoire).   Fraser and L.L. Hall analyze 11-16 in some detail in The Inferno of Checkers.

The Nutcracker



The most famous of the now-barred openings, 10-15 22-17 9-14 17x10 7x14, named the Nutcracker, was one of the 138 openings allowed under three-move restriction.  The Nutcracker was balloted five times in the 8th National Tourney in 1934, with two wins by Black and three by White.  The annotator suggested that 24-20 was probably a winning move for White (actually 15-18* draws, after several more star moves), but in four of the five games 25-22 was played.   In 1937, the committee overseeing three-move ballots were divided on both the Nutcracker and the two Octopus openings, eventually voting to drop the Nutcracker and keep the other two, even though none of the three had been definitively proven sound or unsound.   The attack which defeats the Nutcracker is 25-22* (diagram above: other moves allow Black to draw); Denvir's Three Move Guide concluded that 6-10 was a saving defense, but Ryan's analysis in 1938 found that 25-22* 6-10 24-20* was a win for White.   As both versions of the Octopus proved tenable, the committee's decision was validated.  [Note that in Pool, Russian, or Brazilian, the Nutcracker loses at once to the double capture 17x19 (capturing backwards from 10)].

The Skull Cracker



Another Kelso three-move ballot was a successful one: 10-15 22-17 15-19, named the Skull Cracker by Lee Hunger, was part of the initial three-move restriction (ACF ballot 71, or D2S) and made its serious debut in the 1934 National Tourney.  It proved playable, though very difficult for Black (8 draws and 3 White wins), and is rated by most analysts among the hardest ballots for Black.   White has two possible captures, but 24x15 is much stronger; this leads to a flurry of forced exchanges (11x18 23x14 9x18: diagram above).   It is noted for the difficulty of the endgames it produces (see Pask's Complete Checkers: Insights for a detailed example, as well as analysis of the opening itself).   Manuscripts devoted to the opening have been published by L.L. Hall and Eugene Frazier, and it is covered in every three-move guide.   [Skull Cracker is sometimes spelled as one word or hyphenated, but two words is the official ACF spelling.]

The Goatgetter



10-15 23-18 6-10 was a secondary line in the Kelso Cross during the two-move era (12-16 and 7-10 were preferred).  Early analysis by Tescheleit (10 variations on pp. 296-297) and Kear (var. 55,  p.236) concentrated on 27-23 as White's second move.  Shearer's Modern Draughts Handbook gives 10 games played in the correspondence tournament featured there, all featuring 26-23 (called weak by Tescheleit).  Kear noted that both 26-23 and 18-14 were also good.   By the time it appeared in three-move restriction (ACF Ballot 73, D4J), the strongest attack for White was understood to be 18-14; 9x18* 24-19*; 15x24 22x6*; 1x10 28x19 (diagram above).  Willie Ryan and Harrah B. Reynolds played both sides of it in the 1934 Eighth National Tourney (both games were drawn).   Ryan later analyzed it in his Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers (he analyzes the alternatives to 18-14 but says "none of them pack any real zip").   Fraser's The Inferno of Checkers (game 30, p.160) analyzes the alternate capture 27x20, played by Marion Tinsley in 1950 to a win (see also Fortman and Pask).  A modern look with eight example games is in Moiseyev's Sixth (pp. 290-293, Selected Game 31), including several new moves introduced by Chinook, Cake, and Kingsrow.   Some time during the three-move era the opening was named the Goatgetter.

Strickland's Cross



Another Cross variation, seen in go-as-you-please and two-move as both 10-15 23-18 7-10 (ACF 74, D4T; diagram above) and 11-15 23-18 7-11, was named Strickland's Cross after the blindfold champion William Strickland, also a noted analyst who wrote the earliest portions of what became The British Draughts Player.  While 7-11 is a weaker and less common response to the regular Cross, 7-10 is the second most popular response to the Kelso Cross, and nearly as strong as 12-16.  (Kear's says that 12-16 is "Better than 7-10, ... but rather too heavy a line for the ordinary player".)   The recommended White response is 27-23 (best answered by 3-7), but 26-23 (best answered by 10-14) is also solid (see Strickland's own analysis of 26-23 in Bowen's Cross, pp. 159-161, vars. 889-900).

Old Faithful Openings

The Switcher

       

Except for the fomerly barred exchanges (Double Cross, Denny Exchange, and Black Widow), the two move openings 11-15 21-17 and 9-13 21-17 are the weakest for White, because both allow a position called The Switcher (11-15 21-17 9-13, or 9-13 21-17 11-15).  This was made famous by world champion James Wyllie, who played the White side to confuse his opponents: "...with that weak and apparently silly opening I have switched and perplexed many an eminent player...".   The name was given by Wyllie's friend George Wallace to the opening 11-15 21-17, although any responses other than 9-13 are much weaker.  Switcher became a generic name for the 21-17 reply to any Black opening, when using the compound names of the two-move era, although 21-17 is only a strong reply against 10-15.   [Note also that 9-13 is frequently a strong Black reply to 21-17, as 24-20 is to 12-16.]    Historically, the dominant reply by White in the Switcher is 25-21, usually followed by 8-11 (diagram above left).   The ACF list of opening names officially defines the diagrammed position as the Switcher (11-15 21-17 9-13 is ACF ballot 85, or E1A).    The same position can also arise from 11-15 22-17 9-13 25-22 8-11.

The trunk line in Charles Lawson's 1889 book Lawson's Switcher Guide (also in Lees' Guide) is ...17-14; 10x17 21x14; 6-10 22-17*; 13x22 26x17 (diagram above right); 15-18 24-20.  [4-8 (the trunk in Kear) instead of 15-18 is also sound, but played less often.]   Around 1879, player named J.W. Brock advocated 29-25 instead of 24-20, which caused the Switcher Controversy (see Call's Vocabulary): R.E. Bowen offered a prize (either $5 or $10) for anyone who could prove a draw for White after 29-25.   Wyllie played a correspondence match with Robert Martins in 1880 to test its soundness, and won Bowen's prize after 25 of the 30 games were drawn.   Wyllie wrote a book on the Switcher in 1881 including those games, and the entire match was reprinted in Gould's Historic and Memorable Matches.  (Lawson's book doesn't even mention 29-25.)   Another book on the Switcher is William Timothy Call's Rambles with the Switcher; Call was perhaps the most entertaining writer on checkers before the heyday of Willie Ryan.

Modern practice has largely bypassed the 17-14 line, preferring 30-25, known as the Andrew Jackson defense, played by a player of that name (not the president) as early as 1886 (Fortman analyzes both 30-25 and 17-14).   30-25 allows White a long virtually forced line: 4-8 24-19*; 15x24 28x19; 11-15 17-14*, followed by a double exchange in either order.  Pask has an interesting discussion in Insights of the relative merits of 17-14 vs. 30-25.  Cake's opening book prefers 24-19, found in Lees, Kear, and Walker, but a much less popular line.

The only other tenable alternative to 25-21 is 23-18, which was named the Squirrel by John Bell in 1881.   Modern works don't even mention it, and there doesn't seem to be much analysis in the standard references except for a few variations in Tescheleit (Part 5, pp. 349-350, var. 31) and Kear (pp. 393-394, vars. 18-21 under 9-13 21-17).  Tescheleit says 23-18 is stronger after 8-11, as an alternative to 17-14.   Shearer's Studies of the Two-Move Openings says it "is good enough for a draw, but offers little prospect of White wins."    Wood's Checker Studies 8 (game number 22, p. 50) gives a Black win with 23-18 12-16 (which transposes into a branch of Ryan's Cross) analyzed by Nathan Rubin, but he gives a probably losing move on White's 5th (25-21 is best instead of 27-23?).  Other moves lose: 23-19 is answered by 5-9*, with a position similar to the Laird and Lady Refused.   A.B. Scott advocated 24-20, but that also loses to 5-9 or 8-11 (not 15-19 as suggested by Shearer).

The 26x17 variation of the Single Corner



The trunk of the Single Corner opening is 11-15 22-18 15x22 25x18; this is one of the most common openings in go-as-you-please play, and leads to a position only slightly favoring Black.   There is a voluminous amount of published play on 25x18, and hardly any on the alternate capture, 26x17 (diagram above), which is found mostly in older books.  Lees' Guide classifies this as an opening separate from the trunk, giving four pages to variations of the "26-17 Single Corner", citing an 1864 match between Wyllie and Martins as its first important appearance.  It gives 8-11 as Black's principal third move, with "the results showing Black has a decided advantage".   Strickland, in The British Draughts Player (1896) has only a footnote: "26-17 also draws, but is weak".    Charles Ellsworth, in Ellsworth's Checker Book (edited by Call in 1899) says: "The 26-17 jump is sometimes played to get the opening away from the books, but it is regarded as weak although supposed to be sound.  In spite of its popularity the 'Single Corner' is a hard game for White, and that is why 26-17 has received considerable attention, but it has nothing in its favor except as a novel departure from the beaten track."

Even some works devoted to the Single Corner barely mention it: L.S. Head, on page 100 of Durgin's Single Corner, says: "26 17 draws, but the experienced player should never capture in that manner, as it leads to very critical play."    Volume 6 (The Single Corner) of Tescheleit's Master Play of the Draught Board gives it half a page on the very last page of the book, showing some draws and some Black wins; Tescheleit recommended 12-16 for Black's third move (with the impossible reply 18-14, clearly a typo for 17-14).   Duffy's Single Corner is quite pessimistic, giving it two pages showing nothing but Black wins: "This take rarely arises as the second player labors at a great disadvantage.  The position is decidedly in Black's favor... It is doubtful whether a sound White draw can be sustained on the opening."   Duffy recommends the 9-14 response: "The strongest attack and creates for White a weakness leading to an untenable defense and eventual loss.  A draw is nearly impossible because of White's cramped position."  Duffy's analysis is flawed: he does not give White's strongest lines, and in his trunk (Variation 131, p. 106), at note E, he misses White's critical drawing move 26-22*.

Many modern guides, even comprehensive ones like Fortman's Basic Checkers, do not even mention it; several authors even give 25x18 as a star move (the only drawing move).   However, Richard Pask mentions it in the postscript to Complete Checkers: Repertoire: "Long dismissed as a loss, this has now been shown to be perfectly sound."   He gives a line from the 9-14 reply which after 22 moves he calls even.  In Insights he adds: "it is a case of swimming against the tide and best left to the specialist."   Alex Moiseyev has a long note about the move in Sixth (p. 261), commenting that both he and Ron King have played the move.  Moiseyev suggests that Black's main attacks are 9-13, 9-14, and 10-15, but Ed Gilbert's Kingsrow analysis of five-move ballots says that Black's best reply on the third move is 8-11, rating White's position at this point as even worse than the trunk of the Double Cross opening.   Gilbert has computed an extended opening book showing a draw for White against every Black line of play.  So it is definitely not a forced win for Black, but nevertheless a very difficult draw for White, confirming Patterson's verdict in How To Play Checkers: "If white plays 26 to 17, it would require great skill to obtain a draw."   The official ACF list of opening names still includes 26-17 Single Corner and 27-20 Second Double Corner (see below) as separate names.

The IDF system of balloted openings has one variation of the 26x17 Single Corner: ballot 17 XIII specifies the moves 11-15 22-18 15x22 26x17 9-14 31-26.   The Open Checkers Archive has ten games (six by Wyllie and Martins): two wins for Black and eight draws, all from the 19th century except King's drawn game in the 1999 National Tournament.

The Cross Openings



The Cross opening, 11-15 23-18, has a volume of published play perhaps only rivalled by the Single Corner, and many ways have been developed for Black to avoid the most-played lines.  The trunk for the Cross is 11-15 23-18; 8-11 27-23; 4-8 23-19 (diagram above).   Black's most common alternatives are covered below: on the third move the Short Cross (10-14) and Slip Cross (11-16), and on the second move Cross Choice (9-14), Ryan's Cross (12-16), and the Montrose Cross (15-19).   7-11, Strickland's Cross, is also seen as 10-15 23-18 7-10 (ACF ballot 74 or D4K), and is covered above.   There are also two White alternatives after 8-11 which are occasionally seen: 18-14 is the Waterloo (or Boston Cross), and 26-23 is the Crescent Cross (or Witch).

The Short Cross



The Short Cross 11-15 23-18; 8-11 27-23; 10-14 (diagram above), named by Carl Reno in The Work of the Pentium, which analyzes it in some detail, is one of the two most solid lines for Black to avoid the Cross trunk (along with the Cross Choice below).  The Short Cross was briefly covered in Bowen's Cross (though less so than the Cross Choice), and was played relatively often in the go-as-you-please era (there are actually slightly more Short Cross games than Cross Choice games in the Open Checkers Archive).   Like the Cross Choice, it seemed to wane in the two-move era, and didn't get the latter's benefit of being a three-move ballot.   Fortman gives only a short note, but calls it strong (Kingsrow concurs).   A similar opening with 26-23; 10-14 is common in Brazilian draughts (see the book on Abertura Cruz (Cross Opening) by Alexander Loureiro).

The Slip Cross



This variation of the Cross opening: 11-15 23-18; 8-11 27-23; 11-16 18x11 (diagram above) dates back at least to Joshua Sturges in 1801, who gives it as Game 21, also showing a now well-known trap as Variation 1.   It was named the Slip Cross in the 1888 Campbell-Reed match (Call).  Willie Ryan calls the Slip Cross "one-time favorite of go-as-you-please players", and covers both the trap and several solid lines in Tricks, Traps & Shots of the Checkerboard (pp. 105-108, Sturges' Steamroller).   Kear calls the Slip Cross "obsolete in expert play", and it isn't covered much in modern works.   Fortman gives a line in the trunk 18x11 16-20 24-19, leading to a spectacular blocked position with a king on each side stuck and unable to break through the logjam, and an inevitable draw by repetition.  Pask gives an alternate line advocated by Kenneth Grover, 18x11 16-20 31-27 (see Let's Play Checkers for Grover's own analysis).   A rare alternative to 16-20 is 3-8, which was recommended by Howard Billian on the checkers page of NOST-Algia in May 1971, as a move to get out of book play.   I can't find any reference to 3-8 anywhere in published play (except by transposition in two OCA games), but both Cake and Kingsrow recommend it in their opening books.

The Cross Choice

  

A solid opening which dates back to 19th century go-as-you-please, 11-15 23-18 9-14 also avoids the bulk of published play on the Cross, while being more solid than the Slip Cross or most other variations.   It was named the Cross-Choice (spelled as two words now) in the January 1873 Recreationist, according to Call's Vocabulary (in Russian checkers it is known as the Little Fork.)  Black offers White a choice of captures, and even today there is no clear consensus which is better for White: 18x9 (almost always followed by 5x14; above left) or 18x11 (almost always followed by 8x15; above right).  [There appears to be no published play at all, even in specialized works, on the weak but tenable alternate captures 18x9 6x13 or 18x11 7x16.]   R.E. Bowen covered the Cross Choice in his 1878 manuscript, giving 66 variations (mostly by William Strickland) over about 11 pages, but it appears to have largely ignored in the two-move era.   It reappeared as one of the three-move ballots (ACF 94, E4B) and has received much more attention: Gordon Hester wrote an entire book on it in 1963 (covering 18x11 in much more detail than 18x9).  Reno covers the 18x9 line in The Work of the Pentium.   After 18x11 8x15, White's best move is 22-18, which gives Black a choice of captures, and again there is no agreement on which capture is better.  (This is also possible after 18x9 5x14, but 22-17 is regarded as much stronger than 22-18 in this case.)
 
Ryan's Cross



The opening 11-15 23-18 12-16 was not often played before the three-move era, although "Throstle", writing in the 1908 Canadian Checker Player (vol. 2, num. 1, p. 6) says: "12-16 is a move not to be lightly treated. The Little Giant of Pittsburgh [James P. Reed] often treated us to it...".   It was one of the 137 three-move openings adopted in the 1930's (ACF ballot 96, E4G).  Although it was apparently never considered for elimination, Rex B. Wood wrote in April 1936 in the 8th volume of Wood's Checker Studies: "This is a weak three-mover that some think is untenable and claim should be barred."   He nevertheless analyzed it in detail as Study number 89 (pp. 24-35), and further in volume 9 as Study number 106 (p. 20-21).   Willie Ryan spent 22 pages in the 1943 2nd edition of The Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers (pp. 34-55) analyzing the opening in even more detail (Ryan played it under two-move restriction against Jesse Hanson in the 1929 National Tourney, getting a draw).  Ryan did not give it a name; Richard Fortman called it "the weakest reply to the Cross opening", but suggested calling it Ryan's Cross, which is now the official ACF name.

After 18x11 8x15, White's only move to keep an advantage is 24-20 (diagram above); Black's best defense is probably either 9-14 (recommended by Wood, Fortman, and Pask), or 7-11 (preferred by Ryan, and the book move for both Cake and Kingsrow).   Wood and several other analysts claimed that 9-14 was the only saving defense, and Wood's study claimed wins against both 7-11 and 16-19; Ryan claimed all three moves could draw.  Computer analysis agrees with Ryan that both 7-11 and 9-14 draw, but the status of 16-19 is not clear: if Black draws, it is extremely difficult (running Kingsrow at 2 minutes per move produced a clear win for White after 50 moves).   In Big League Checkers, Ryan presents another defense, 3-8: "This defense in my opinion is at least equally as good as the 7-11 or 9-14 alternatives, and certainly involves far less play."  Computer analysis also gives 3-8 as a definite draw, but it has been little played, and I have found no other published play (one game in the 1954 World Mail Play Tourney ended in a win for White after a middlegame mistake by Black).

The same 12-16 move after 11-15 23-18; 8-11 27-23 is a gambit called the Firehouse Cross (see Fortman, p. 318), a known loss after the two-for-one shot 24-19 15x24 28x12.   It was famously played by Walter Hellman in the 8th National Tourney in 1934, in the third round against Charles W. Young, trailing by a game.   The annotator commented: "This a tricky move, and although it loses, it requires correct play by White.  Many games have been won ... by deliberately playing 12-16."  Young, however, won in 25 moves.   I have not found a source for the name Firehouse, nor any published play.

The Montrose Cross



Another alternative to the trunk lines of the Cross opening is 11-15 23-18 15-19 24x15 10x19 (diagram above), the Montrose Cross.  This was named in 1869 by John Bertie, after yet another town in Scotland.   It has a long history from go-as-you-please and two-move (where it was also seen from 11-16 23-18 16-19), although it isn't covered in older guides (Kear only gives a transposition from 9-14 23-19 11-16 (var. 32, p.366)).  Now 11-15 23-18 15-19 is ACF ballot 97 (E4S), and is found in most three-move guides.  It slightly favors White, who has at least five reasonable attacks in the diagrammed position, but Pask in Complete Checkers: Insights, calls it: "a dynamic, complex ballot with excellent winning chances for both sides. The mystery is why it is not adopted more often at freestyle play..." (see Lesson 264, pp. 420-421).   The recommended move in Fortman and Pask is 27-24 (also played twice in the Moiseyev-King match: see Sixth).   Maurice Chamblee, an advocate of the opening, preferred 22-17; Kingsrow recommends 21-17.   The other two moves, 18-14 and 18-15, are likely to transpose into other openings.  The Open Checker Archive has 89 games covering all five of the common White attacks.

The Laird and Lady



The original form of this traditional opening was 11-15 23-19; 8-11 22-17; 9-13; the trunk is ...17-14; 10x17 21x14.  If White plays 25-22 instead of 17-14, the opening is called the Laird and Lady Refused, which is found in older guides, despite already being a known loss (5-9*) by the time of Lees' Guide in 1893.   If White captures 19x10 instead of 21x14, followed by Black's recapture 7x14 (6x15 is weak, sometimes called the Black Doctor Refused), the opening becomes the Black Doctor (see below), or Nonsuch.

Nowadays, however, several other moves are preferred for Black's third, and the Laird and Lady is more often seen from the Boston: 11-15 22-17; 9-13 17-14; 10x17 21x14; 8-11 23-19, transposing into the trunk above (this bypasses the Black Doctor).  After the usual 15-18 (diagram above), White's most common replies are 19-15, 24-20, or 26-23.   In the third section of Stearns' Granite State Checker Series, G.D. Sherrow suggests the move 26-22, and shows several White wins after 4-8 22x15; 11x18 19-15, but the last move overlooks the two-for-one shot 6-10 15x6 1x17.  Instead of 19-15, Kingsrow suggests ...25-21; 6-9 30-25; 13-17 24-20 with a relatively even game.

The Black Doctor



As noted above under Laird and Lady, the Black Doctor is 11-15 23-19; 8-11 22-17; 9-13 17-14; 10x17 19x10; 7x14 (diagram above).   This opening gambit goes all the way back to Payne: his last four games show a variation developing from the Old Fourteenth after 11-15 22-17; 8-11 23-19; 4-8 25-22; 9-13 17-14 etc. (same as the diagrammed position plus 25-22; 4-8; however, Payne gives the (almost certainly) losing move 29-25? instead of 27-23 for all four games.)   Swan and Adamson analyzed the opening in the 1878-1879 Glasgow Weekly Herald (where they called it Nonsuch or Doctor): some of their analysis is quoted Lees and other guides.   Dr. Walter Edward Truax put out a booklet on the Black Doctor in 1888 (revised in 1892 with Denvir).  Around 1895 Dr. Stayman played a correspondence match with Julian Janvier, trying (unsuccessfully, despite 11 wins and a draw out of 12 games) to prove the entire opening unsound for White; he also published his analysis.   The 1908 Canadian Checker Player (volume 2) analyzed the Black Doctor over five consecutive issues, over 40 pages in all, with 11 trunk lines (drawing heavily on Swan and Adamson, but adding analysis from many others).  As mentioned under the White Doctor, Ben Boland's 1984 White and Black Doctors covers both openings.  

In 1995, Whitefork Press put out a 40 page booklet called Lockhart's Black Doctor, based on an 8-page manuscript by Charles Jordan Lockhart (possibly unpublished, date unknown), with additions from Truax, Stayman, and other well-known analysts (though Swan and Adamson barely appear, and there is no reference to Boland).  Modern guides do not cover the Black Doctor in any detail, since it is avoided by recommended variations, but Pask's Insights (p. 167) and Fortman (p. 337) mention a variation starting from 11-15 23-19; 8-11 21-17 (Derek Oldbury played this, to a draw, in his 1988 GAYP World Championship match against Don Lafferty.
 
The Kentucky Glasgow



Named and analyzed by Conrad Cantor in his 40-page monograph: 11-15 23-19; 8-11 22-17; 11-16 25-22; 16x23 27x11; 7x16 32-27 (diagram above).  According to the author, "eliminating reams of hackneyed published play."   Tom Wiswell's Complete Guide to Checkers (Glossary, p. 122) calls the Kentucky sound.  Jim Loy claimed a possible refutation in Basic Checkers: Corrections, but computer analysis has Black only a bit ahead in the position he marks as a win: both Kingsrow and Cake play the game out to a draw.   Kingsrow's opening book also has improvements for both sides (e.g. preferring 24-20 or 22-18 instead of Cantor's 32-27, or 24-20 instead of 29-25 or 26-23 in the 9-14 line), and Black has only a slight edge in the best lines.

The Tillicoultry



Named after a town in Scotland, The Tillicoultry (11-15 23-19; 8-11 22-18; 15x22) is a delayed version of the Single Corner.  The opening was called Cuckoo in Dunne's 1890 Guide, but the name Tillicoultry given to it by Strickland in 1885 caught on.   Unlike the regular Single Corner, the 25x18* capture is necessary (diagram above): 26x17? loses to several Black replies (11-16 is best; 11-15 or 4-8 also win).  The trunk continues 11-16 27-23; 16-20 32-27; 10-14, dating all the way back to John Drummond in 1851! (see Lees' Guide).   [Despite its age, it was classed as an irregular opening in the British Draughts Player in 1906, but Dawson's revision of Lees' Guide established it as a standard opening.] 

The Single Corner can transpose into the Tillicoultry after 25x18 8-11 23-19, but other Single Corner lines (12-16, or 8-11 followed by 29-25) are more often played and probably stronger.  In Complete Checkers: Insights (p.167), Richard Pask says: "the problem this early exchange causes White is that of over development"; he gives a line with 4-8 instead of Drummond's 10-14.   The Tillicoultry is still seen today (world champions Sergio Scarpetta and Alex Moiseyev have both played it).  Modern players often prefer 4-8 (also Kingsrow's choice) instead of the trunk 11-16.   Carl Reno wrote a full book on the Tillicoultry in addition to his analysis in The Work of the Pentium.

The Defiance and the Dodger

  

These related openings are characterized by White's second move 27-23 following either 11-15 23-19 9-14 (Defiance) or 11-15 23-19 8-11 (Dodger).  In both cases White wishes to avoid the well-analyzed openings: the Defiance (diagram above left) dates back to Andrew Anderson's 1847 match vs. James Wyllie (devised by Anderson's second John McKerrow (see Fortman)), as an alternative to 22-17 (which would allow the Fife, Glasgow, Souter, or Whilter).   It is the preferred modern variation against 9-14, with the trunk being 8-11 22-18; 15-22 25x9*; 5x14 29-25 (Pask's Key Landing 6).  [Ryan claims that 8-11 22-17? 4-8! wins for Black (p. 111, note A), but it is in Kingsrow's opening book, and almost certainly a weak draw.]   Other moves besides 8-11 transpose to other ballots (see Fortman or Pask).   Gordon Hester wrote a book (which I have not seen) on the Defiance in 1960.

The Dodger was analyzed and named by Willie Ryan in Championship Checkers Simplified (pp. 105-144; available at Internet Archive), although it is older (it is the main variation of the Win Back opening in Russian draughts, and is used in two IDF ballots).   Also an alternative to 22-17, it prevents the Glasgow, Alma, Old Fourteenth, and Laird and Lady, among others.   Ryan claims it as a safer drawing line, rather than a line with good winning chances for White.   Although it "dodges" a number of openings, Ryan actually named it for his friend Col. Sam S. Schiller, a devoted fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers.   The Dodger can transpose to the regular Defiance if Black plays 9-14, but the strongest move is 9-13 (diagram above right), which usually leads to a variation of the Tillicoultry after 22-18; 15x22 25x18.   See the Ryan book for much more detail on both openings.

The Souter

    

A traditional opening which first appeared in Anderson's 2nd edition is the Souter, originally defined by the move sequence 11-15 23-19; 9-14 22-17; 6-9 (its characteristic move).   In modern play it usually occurs by transposition from other openings: Fortman analyzes it as the trunk of the opening 11-15 21-17; 9-14 25-21; 8-11 23-19; 6-9 17-13; 2-6, which transposes to the traditional Souter trunk (also from the Double Corner; e.g. via 9-14 22-17 11-15 25-22.)   The extended trunk is 6-9 17-13; 2-6 25-22; 8-11 29-25; 4-8 24-20; 15x24 28x19; 11-15 27-24; 14-17 21x14; 9x18 26-23 (diagram above left), dating back at least to Janvier's 1881 revision of Sturges.  The Souter was the subject of a manuscript with 800 variations, by William M. Courtney, probably in the 1930's or 1940's (he also wrote books on the Alma and Old Fourteenth), cited in the literature as Courtney's Souter.   Reno also analyzes several lines in The Work of the Pentium, including the line 26-23 (preferred by Kingsrow and often played by Walter Hellman) instead of 24-20.

In 1892 Thomas J. Riley wrote a monograph on an alternate tenth move for White, 31-27 instead of 26-23.  Fortman calls this line Riley's Souter, but says it is "at best, a technical draw".  The Open Checkers Archive has one game with 31-27, compared to 109 games with the book move 26-23.   While the move is tenable (it can be found in Kingsrow's opening book), it leaves White at a disadvantage, while 26-23 produces an even game.  It may not even be original with Riley, being found in Janvier's Sturges, as well as books by Robertson and Livermore, which predate Riley's book by a few years (Livermore gives it one of his oddball names: Bennet and Barnard).  The usual continuation is 5-9 20-16 (a correction by Janvier); 10-14 19x10; 12x28 22x15, with a difficult draw for White.  

William Hay's 1862 edition of The Draught Player has a number of weaker Souter lines under the name Pioneer (not related to the modern Pioneer).   He also has two long lines with 22-17 on White's sixth move (a weaker but playable alternative to 24-20 or 26-23), continuing with 14-18 (diagram above right).   He designates this as the Needle (presumably for the long formation from 8 to 18), showing a trap as the trunk line: 24-20? loses to 15x24 28x19; 18-23 27-18; 10-14 17x10; 6x29.   Several other weak lines are shown, before Hay shows the strongest reply to 14-18: the move 27-23, which he calls the Shuttle.

The 27x20 variation of the Second Double Corner



This has some similarities to the 26x17 Single Corner above, though it is not as weak compared to the trunk Second Double Corner (11-15 24-19; 15x24 28x19).  Once again Lees' Guide gives it a separate section "27-20 Second Double Corner", almost as long as the previous section on 28x19, with the comment "... still, it seems to admit of a fairly firm defense".   It also first appeared in the Wyllie-Martins 1864 match.  Lees gives 9-14 as the best response, also analyzing 8-11 and 10-15 (which transposes into a line of the Kelso Second, also mentioned in Kear's Encyclopaedia).   It is not mentioned in Denvir and Bradt's Second Double Corner Book.   Fortman calls it a "handicap line", also mentioning the Kelso transposition.   Pask, in Complete Checkers: Repertoire, calls it "weak, but sound, and capable of producing many White wins!".  He gives one line with 8-11.   Kingsrow says that 8-11 is the best response (just as it is against 28x19), and White appears to lose after any response except 22-18*.   27x20 occurs twice as an IDF ballot, once alone and once followed by 10-15.   The Open Checkers Archive has 21 games with 27x20, with all three common responses.  [The Recreationist magazine in 1873 or 1874 named this variation Ravensdowne, a name which did not catch on (see Call's Vocabulary: p. 150, Recreationist list).]   The analogous capture in the Kelso (10-15 24-19; 15x24 27x20) is a bit better for White than it is here: see Pask's Repertoire p. 413 #112.]

Was the Second Double Corner ever considered a loss?

The New Complete Hoyle, at least as early as 1956, says: "The Second Double Corner, for a long time considered to be a White loss, has been rehabilitated by the discovery that White can draw by breaking his bridge promptly."   Call's 1908 Vocabulary of Checkers defines Suspected Opening as "one whose soundness is doubted by experts, owing to the absence of proof.  The Second Double Corner, for example, was for many years classed as a suspected opening, but its soundness was finally established."    In the 11th Edition of Encyclopaedia Brittanica (1910-1911), the article on Draughts by J.M.M. Dallas and Richard Jordan says: "...it came to be regarded as decidedly weak... In the Scottish Tournament of 1894 ... Stewart ... won the game with white, introducing new play which has stood the test of analysis, and so rehabilitating the opening in public favour."    Doubt and unpopularity aside, I can find no evidence in the literature that the Second Double Corner (11-15 24-19) has ever been judged as a loss for White.  It has been a standard opening since the 19th century, first named by Anderson in 1852 (Game 8 in Anderson's 1848 first edition was even labeled Wylie's invincible Game [sic]).   It has been part of both two-move and three-move restriction since their inceptions (it is ballot number 101 in the ACF system).

The early bridge-breaking move 30-25 on White's 5th move dates back to Sturges in 1800 (where it is the trunk in game number 53, a draw): 11-15 24-19; 15x24 28x19; 8-11 22-18; 10-14 25-22; 11-16 30-25; 4-8 22-17; 16-20 17x10; 6x24 32-28 (White has now moved both bridge pieces).  This was half a century before Anderson, so how could it have rehabilitated an opening that didn't even have a name yet?   A supposed loss by 27-24 (instead of 30-25) on White's fifth, still mentioned as late as Cady's 1896 booklet Checkers, had been corrected by Janvier in 1881, and 10-14 on Black's fourth was considered a branch line as early as 1895 in Kear's revision of Sturges, with 11-16 becoming the trunk (which it still is today).  Even more curiously, Kear gives three lines with 30-25 ending in losses for White (with Black playing 6-10 or 16-20 instead of Sturges's 4-8 on Black's sixth), and the 30-25 line doesn't appear at all in Kear and Alexander's Encyclopaedia.   In fact, Kingsrow gives 30-25 in the Sturges line as a probable loss, after 6-10 27-24; 16-20 31-27; 9-13 etc.    The most likely explanation I can see for the Hoyle comment is that they were mistakenly following Cady.   [One example of bridge-breaking earlier in the game is Black's 3-8 in the Alma opening.]

The Old Paraffin



This is a branch of the Ayrshire Lassie opening: 11-15 24-20; 8-11 27-24 (instead of the usual 28-24; diagram above).   It was named by William Campbell, editor of the Draughts World, in February 1893: "...the opening we saw most generally practiced about twenty years ago among the employees of a chemical works near Lamarck." (Call, Vocabulary).   It doesn't appear in most compilations: the most detailed analysis is by Willie Ryan (Scientific Checkers Made Easy, pp. 97-108), who was perhaps its biggest advocate: "The opening is slightly in favor of Black, but the playing edge is never dangerous when the White pieces are properly manipulated."   Jim Loy attempted a refutation in Basic Checkers: Corrections, but analysis by Kingsrow indicates that White has various drawing lines available.   Richard Pask, in the postscript to Complete Checkers: Repertoire (p. 415), gives it one variation, but says: "...now officially designated sound."

Newcastle and Leeds
In his 1890 Guide and Companion, Frank Dunne named two of the responses to 11-16, calling 11-16 21-17 Newcastle (this name is still in occasional use: see Martin Gardner's article in Scientific American) and 11-16 22-17 Leeds.   H.F Shearer, in the 1912 Modern Draughts Handbook, mistakenly used Leeds to refer to 11-16 21-17, despite citing Dunne as his source.   The error was compounded in the 1927 Draughts Review (p. 158), where note (b) says of 11-16 21-17 9-13: "the distinctive reply, as recommended by the late W. Strickland, after whom the opening was named 'Leeds' " (Strickland was a native of the city of Leeds).   Shearer's 1914 Studies in the Two-Move Openings, however, says of 9-13: "Strickland deemed this a weak reply".   Why would Strickland have recommended a weak reply?    It is true that the two openings can transpose: 11-16 21-17 9-13 25-21 is the same as 11-16 22-17 9-13 25-22.  The trouble with that idea is that 11-16 22-17 9-13 (the Wilderness Companion we saw earlier) was virtually unknown until the three-move era, and was barred until 2003.  In Basic Checkers, Fortman (p.370, Opening 105) says of 11-16 21-17: "Under the 2-move restriction this opening was titled the Leeds in many periodicals".   If this is true, they are repeating Shearer's mistake: I have not turned up any references besides those cited above.

Oliver's Twister



Willie Ryan named the opening 11-16 21-17 8-11 Oliver's Twister, after his friend and fellow analyst Oliver J. Mauro, who did much of the work analyzing it for the 2nd edition of Ryan's Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers, where it is covered in more detail than the 1940 1st edition.   It was not seen much until the three-move era (ACF ballot 106, or F1M).   The characteristic attack is White's second move 17-14, followed by the recapture 10x17* 22x13 (diagram above: the alternate capture 9x18 loses after 22x8 4x11 24-20).   Other moves 17-13 and 25-21, instead of 17-14, usually transpose.


The Black Widow (F5) and Barred Dundee (G5)

             
          Black Widow trunk                        Barred Dundee (White is lost)

In the earliest version of two-move restriction, the twin openings 11-16 23-19 (F5) and 12-16 23-19 (G5) were both barred.   Both openings have a forced capture of 16x23 by Black, with White able to recapture by either 26x19 or 27x18.   Later they were both controversially added to the two-move ballots, with some analysts believing they could be drawn, while others thought them losses.   In G-5, the recapture 12-16 23-19 16x23 26x19 was soon discarded by almost every analyst as untenable (the 1950 edition of Kear's Encyclopaedia and Shearer's Modern Draughts Handbook each still include one variation).  W.G. Parker analyzed G5 in volume 1 of the Draughts Review, finding a draw doubtful, with the line 27x18 11-16 26-23 being the only hope for White.   Banks gives some analysis for both openings in Scientific Checkers: he thought that 11-16 23-19 and 12-16 23-19 16x23 27x18 might both be found to be draws, but reached no definite conclusion on either.   Note that 11-16 23-19 16x23 27x18 12-16 transposes into 12-16 23-19 16x23 27x18 11-16 (diagram above right), which Banks gives as the trunk for G5.   (Of course, 11-16 23-19 16x23 26x19 12-16 is a win for White!)   Various analysts, particularly John Howe Jr. and Peter Doran, attempted to prove draws for G5 in the American Checker Monthly beginning in March 1921.  P.H. Ketchum analyzed G5 in 1922 in Wendemuth's Checker Companion: "Mr. Ketchum believes this opening to be a loss for white, but does not wish to make the positive assertion."    Erroll Smith analyzed G5 in detail in his 1931 American Checker Player's Handbook (pp.45-66) without reaching a definite conclusion.

When three-move restriction began in 1931, both 11-16 23-19 16x23 and 12-16 23-19 16x23 were excluded from the three-move ballots.   Tom Wiswell called them "hopeless" in his 1946 Learn Checkers Fast.   Kear's says of F5: "It should have been left on the scrap-heap", but analyzes both.  Walter Hellman and Herbert Richter analyzed F5 (11-16 23-19 16x23 26x19 (diagram above left) was established as the only hope) in the 1980's in Midwest Checkers (starting with "The Barred Bristol", Midwest Checkers, April 1980, pp. 20-21, and June 1980, p.88), eventually concluding it to be a loss, but Chinook later found a draw in the 26x19 8-11 line, with the innovation 18-15 on White's 8th move (see Dennis Cayton's Compilation for details): White must still make several star moves thereafter.  Another major line is 26x19 9-14, usually continuing 27-23 8-11 22-18*.  The alternate capture 27x18 is a loss when Black follows with 12-16 (the transposing line Banks gives for G5).  The name Black Widow was proposed and accepted for F5, and the opening was added to the ACF three-move ballots in 2003 as 121-A.  Oddly, the recapture 26x19*, the only one which saves the Black Widow, loses in the formerly barred Double Cross.

However, Chinook analyzed 12-16 23-19 16x23 as a loss for White after either recapture (confirmed by Kingsrow), so G5 remains barred.  However, the win in most lines requires several star moves for Black: for example, a heavily analyzed line of the 1920's needs six consecutive star moves (discounting forced moves) for Black to keep a winning advantage: 12-16 23-19; 16x23 27x18*; 11-16* 26-23; 16-20* 24-19; 8-11* 22-17; 9-14* 18x9; 5x14 25-22; 11-15* 30-26; 15x24 28x19; 4-8*!

The Minotaur



The opening 12-16 21-17 9-14 (diagram above), named the Minotaur by Richard Fortman, was little-played before the three-move era, although it can be found in Kear and Shearer.   It was one of the original three-move ballots (ACF 127, or G1B).  It is somewhat dangerous for both sides, but only mildly favors White.   White can block the capture with 25-21 (a passive move which usually results in a flurry of exchanges), evade with 17-13 (recommended by several sources), or counterattack with the aggressive 24-19.   Wood's Checker Studies 7 devoted three studies to the opening (74-76, pp. 10-12 and 14-15), covering all three of White's options.   More analysis can be found in Fortman and Pask.

The Bonnie Dundee



In older books, the opening 12-16 24-20 8-12 (diagram above) was called the Black Switcher: after the common reply 22-18, it is exactly the Switcher 11-15 21-17 9-13 25-21 with colors reversed, but 28-24 has been considered the strongest response since the 19th century).  Nowadays it is known as the Bonnie Dundee (given in Fortman, but not Call, so it is a comparatively recent name).   Since 24-20 and 8-12 are the strongest second and third moves, the Bonnie Dundee is essentially the trunk line for the entire Dundee opening (the only other tenable replies to 24-20 are 10-15 (Skunk, below) and 11-15, which transposes to ballot 103 (11-15 24-20 12-16).   The Bonnie Dundee is a common opening in Brazilian Draughts, where it is called the Bodianski opening (see the book by Louriero): the original form in Russian draughts is the Skunk, while 8-12 is the preferred variation in Brazil (11-15 doesn't work with backwards captures, because of the double capture 20x18).  

After 8-12 28-24, the traditional play for Black was 9-14, but Julius D'Orio advocated 3-8 (known in the 19th century, but considered a secondary line), and that line was gradually improved (see Fortman for more details) so that it is the preferred line today.  [The only other tenable move is 10-15, transposing into a mild branch of the Skunk.]   Pask analyzes 3-8 in great detail, and relegates 9-14 to a note.   Both lines are analyzed by Lees (3-8 only in a series of footnotes, but calling it quite safe in the 1931 edition), Fortman, and Wood's Checker Studies 7 (Study 87, p. 36).

The Skunk



One of the twelve ballots added in 2003, 12-16 24-20 10-15 was named the Skunk by Elbert Lowder.   Most older books don't include it, but Shearer's The Modern Draughts Handbook includes a few lines on pp. 119-120.   It has been a common opening in Russian draughts since the late 19th century, advocated by Pavel Nikolayevich Bodiansky (see comments above on the Bonnie Dundee).   [Official IDF ballots cover 12 variations for 10-15 and 11 for 8-12.]   The Skunk is also common in American Pool (see the book by Black and Waters).  The trunk is 12-16 24-20; 10-15 22-18; 15x22 25x18: Cayton's Compilation gives 11-15 as Black's best fourth move, evaluating 8-12 as a loss after 29-25, but 8-12 29-25; 16-19* 23x16; 12x19 saves the line (diagram above), and 8-12 is given as best in Pask's Repertoire (although 11-15 is also sound).  16-19 is credited to Nigel Proffitt, who played it in Wood's Mail Play Ladder in 1998.   In The Golden Dozen, Pask calls the Skunk "Undoubtedly the most balanced of the new ballots".  [In older terminology, skunk has an unconnected meaning: to win without the opponent being able to get a king, sometimes used as a problem theme (see Call's Vocabulary)].

Appendix 3 -- Glossary

analyst -- theorist who analyzes games, problems, and especially openings.
apex -- checkers at 7 or 26, which form a strong defensive formation with 2 & 3 or 30 & 31.  Most openings avoid moving the apex piece too early.
bridge -- checkers paired at 1 and 3 or 30 and 32, which defend the king row.  General strategy suggests maintaining the bridge as long as possible, but there are exceptions.
cut -- an exchange where the captured piece is recaptured.
dog hole -- squares 5 and 28, where an advanced piece can be blocked by 1 or 32.   A piece in the dog hole reverses the calculation of the Move.  See Pask's Complete Checkers: Insights for examples of its effects.
dust hole -- squares 12 and 21, where an advanced piece can be trapped by 3 (or 4) or 30 (or 29).
double X exchange -- a transposition where two exchanges are forced, with the resulting position the same no matter which capture is taken first (e.g. in the opening C6Q, the position will be the same after either 22x15 11x18 23x14 9x18, or 23x14 9x18 22x15 11x18).  Other examples on White's second move are in openings C7Q, D1R, E1S, E2S, and F3T; there is also one in the Goose Walk trap.   If one of the initial captures allows a double capture in reply (e.g. the 5-9 line of the Henderson), it is not a true double X exchange, and the other initial capture choice is usually correct.
Golden Dozen -- the last twelve ballots approved in three-move restriction, bringing the total to 156.
inside vector -- a transposition reached by two different pieces moving: e.g. 12-16/8-12 on Black's first two moves reaches the same position as 11-16/8-11.
king walk -- a non-capturing move by a king, the only move that is reversible (captures, promotions, and non-capturing moves by men are irreversible).  In endgame databases, king walks can lead to repeated positions and lack of progress.
landing -- a position in the late opening or early midgame which can be reached from many openings by transposition.
the Move -- traditional name for what is called opposition in chess.   The side with opposition, if it is not altered (usually by a cut), will eventually put the opponent in zugzwang.
Old Faithful -- Black's opening move of 11-15, by far the strongest.   Named by Tom Wiswell in 1946 in Learn Checkers Fast.   Only one plausible three-move opening starting with Old Faithful was found to be untenable (and only one with 11-15 second).
outside vector -- a transposition reached by moving a piece twice by different paths: e.g. 11-15/15-19 on Black's first two moves reaches the same position as 11-16/16-19.
published play -- (often abbreviated PP; also called book play) analysis of games, particularly openings, in the literature (books and magazines, and now websites).  Corrections are found frequently, either winning lines in positions thought to be drawn, or vice versa.
Petrov's Triangle -- a basic endgame technique in 8x8 checkers with three flying kings versus one, dating back to 17th century Spain.   It does not work in 10x10 checkers.   In American Pool the 3 vs 1 ending is called The Special or Spanish First Position.  
star move -- (denoted by an asterisk) the only move in the current position which wins (all other moves draw or lose), or holds a draw (all other moves lose).   Some authors seem to use it for a very strong move which is not the only move to win or draw.
tenable -- a move which allows a player to at least draw with best play.
trunk (game) (line) -- principal line in an opening (the same as a main line in chess) from which variations (branches) are listed.
untenable -- a move which produces a losing position with best play.
variant -- one of a family of related games.
variation -- a sequence of moves in an opening.
zugzwang -- a position where any move will lose one or more pieces.

This article is copyright ©2024 by Michael Keller.  All rights reserved.  This file was revised on December 21, 2024.