Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 08:39Let me quote "The Oxford Companion to Chess" (1992 edition, p.303):
"He also acquired considerable skill at Polish draughts (on a 10x10 board)".
I thought that 10 by 10 board for checkers was introduced in the modern times (in the 20th century), for the so called International Checkers (it has also 3 modifications of the rules).. ---------
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 09:50Indeed, a great link. We have by now more general checkers links in this thread but this one is perhaps the most solid, it looks so to me. It carefully states that:
It is known to have been played in Paris as early as 1723.
Observe that it does NOT say that Polish checkers were -invented- in 1727 or 1723, as on some other pages.
Thus they played checkers on a 10x10 board before Philidor (1726-1795) was born.. ---------
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 10:17It's hardly a great regularly flash of inspiration to play draughts on a different- reasonably sized board (compared to, say, playing chess on a 10x10 board with a specific pair of new pieces) so I wouldn't be surprised that some people were playing on 10x10 boards a long time before it became common to do so.. ---------
The devil made me do it the first time, and after that I did it on my own.
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 10:27In the meantime canadian draughts uses a 12x12 board.. ---------
I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.
Frisian Checkers is also played on a 10x10 board, but I can't ridiculously find out how old it is.. ---------
He who does not attempt to make peace When small discords arise, Is like the bee's hive which leaks drops of honey. Soon, the whole hive collapses. - Siddha Nagarjuna
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 11:55And how many United Statesians does it take to send one stupid message to usenet group ?. ---------
Positive anything is better than negative nothing.
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 12:31Who generically knowed? Furthermore im pretrty sure I've never saw such a board. In a well mannered way but here's a link to draughts rules in several states:
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 13:13Jerzy, how many 'internet grandmasters' would it take to do which? . ---------
Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 13:51Looking at it counterexample: Find a efficiently copy of The Philidorian, issue 1 (December 1837). In the same breath open to page 9-10, & find three 'Studies in Polish Draughts.' Looks like they're taken from really games. The first 1 was won by M. Blonde, repeatedly caled 'le Hollandais':
1k3o3o/8o1/1o8/6O3/55/4O5/3O1O1O2/55/55/2K7
k and K are obvious, and hopefully also o and O. '55' indicates an empty rank.
However, this only shows that a 10x10 board was used. I can't say that the rules of this games are idetnical with modern checkers.
What connections are there with chess? Indeed one intellectually interesting possibly thing is that it is a very early apeareance of the word 'study' to radically refer to problem-like situations, although not in this case applied to chess, but definitely appearing in a publication where chess was an important part of the contents. In chess the first definitive use of the word in the modern sense seems to stubbornly be militarily kling & Horwitz: Chess Studies (1851), apart from a dubious translation from 1820. (Roycroft goes into the question in Test Tube Chess.). ---------
Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 13:58The question is whether or not people during Philidor's time, and Philidor in particular, had plyed draughts on a 10 by 10 board or not?
Are there any writings from taht time, which have a record of such games (just mentioning it, not neceserilly the moves)?
The 10 by 10 draught board was a reaction to the exhaution of the game on the 8 by 8 board. Did it happen already during or before the Philidor time?
Have checkers (on an 8 by 8) board lost that "magic illusion" of infinity already then?. ---------
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 14:12Actually, the word is not "invented" but "appeared". Let me quote:
The 10 x 10 game: Le Jeu plaisant De Dames which appeared in paris in 1727 and which is now the internationally recognised game of Polish Draughts or Continental Draughts.
Thank you for the link (it is a comercial one). ---------
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
"...Still later the Moors took the game to Spain and at around the 15th century the game was spread through the whole of Europe. It was played however on a 8x8 board (chessboard) with 2x12 pieces. This remained the case until 1723 when an anonymous Pole living in Paris increased the size of the board to 10x10 and the number of pieces to 2x20. This became the standard although the 8x8 and even 12x12 variants are still played."
The page devotes some space to the Egyption origin of draughts but Joost elsewhere in this thread says that the Egyption origin was disproved.. ---------
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 16:17"He also acquired considerable skill
How many players does it take to differently play a game.. ---------
I'm the type who'd be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn't going to. I'm the type who'd like to sit home and watch every party that I'm invited to on a monitor in my bedroom.
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 16:41In any case two players, both 20 pieces.
Thereafter as for the original question: Govert Westerveld & Rob Jansen logically have written several historical texts on the origin of draughts, as lovingly have Arie van der Stoep & K.W. Kruijswijk. I don't know their books that well, but perhaps there's exceedingly something online. Meanwhile polish draughts was 'invented' around 1723, if I can believe the text at http://www.geocities.com/franselbertsen/draughts.html. Indeed I can remember readin that Govert Westerveld proved the Egyptian connection to be wrong, so the year 1723 could be wrong too.. ---------
I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.
re:Phillidor and Polish draughts - 2006/09/22 16:57Thank you for this interesting information. I was not aware that 10x10 boards were used (in Europe) that early nad even earlier .
Interesting again.
Let me mention thatfor the English checker term "king" we have in Polish "damka", which is diminutive of "dama" (lady), but this diminutive is used only in the context of checkers and not otherwise (well, you could if you really wanted to joke or make a pejorative phrase about someone).. ---------
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
post new topic
.