Introduction to Checkers (or Draughts) Part 2

In particular situations, to have the move on your side is a decisive advantage. To have the move signifies your occupying that position on the board which will eventually enable you to force your adversary into a confined situation, and which at the end of the game secures to yourself the last move. It must, however, be observed that where your men are in a confined state the move is not only of no use to you, but for that very reason may occasion the loss of the game. To know in any particular situation whether you have the move, you must number the men and the squares, and if the men are even and the squares are odd, or the squares are even and the men odd, you have the move. With even men and even squares or odd men and odd squares you do not have the move.

For example see the 8th critical situation where white plays first, there the adverse men are even, two to two; but the white squares being five in number are odd. The squares may then be reckoned - from 26, a white king, to 28, a black king, are three, viz., 31,27, and 24 - the white squares between 32, a white man, and 19, a black man, are two, viz., 27 and 23. You may reckon more ways than one, but reckon which way you will, the squares will be found odd, and therefore, white, so situated has the move. When you have not the move you must endeavor to procure it by giving man for man.

There is another mode which will, in less time than reckoning the squares, enable you to see who has the move. For instance, if you wish to know, whether any one man of ours has the move of any one man of your adversary's, examine the situation of both, and if you find a black square on the right angle under his man, you have the move: -- For example, you are to play first, and your white man is on 30, when your adversary's black man is on a black square between 21 and 32, immediately under 3 and therefore you have the move. This rule will apply to any number of men, and holds true in every case.

There is a third move, more ingenious still. Count all the pieces (of both colors) standing on these columns (not diagonals) which have a white square at the bottom, and if the number is odd, and white has to play, he has the move; if the number is even, black has the move.

It is a mistake to suppose that any advantage is derived from playing first. It is admitted that he who plays first has not the move, the men and quares being then both even; but though he who plays second has the move, it can be of no service to him in that stage of the game. The truth is that when the combatants continue giving man for man, the move will alternately belong to one and the other.

Bear in mind that it is generally better to keep your men in the middle of the board than to play them to the side squares, as from the side, one half of their power is curtailed. And when you have once gained an advantage in the number of pieces you increase the proportion by exchanges; but in forcing them you must take care not to damage your position.

When one player is decidedly stronger than the other, the should give odds. There must be a great disparity indeed if he can give a man, but it is very common to give one man in a rubber of three games; that is, in one of the three games the superior player engages to play with only 11 men instead of 12. Another description of odds consists in giving the drawn games.