The History of Draughts: Britain's Oldest Family Game

Draughts has a paradox at its heart. The rules take about three minutes to learn. Two players, diagonal moves, jump to capture, reach the far side to crown a king. Yet this apparently simple game contains more possible positions than there are grains of sand on Earth, has occupied the world's greatest mathematical minds, and was the first game a computer ever truly mastered. The history of draughts stretches back to the pharaohs and runs through Victorian England, Cold War computing labs, and the living rooms of every generation of British family since the game was codified in the seventeenth century.

Jaques of London has been making draughts sets since the Victorian era, long before most people knew it was possible to solve a board game with mathematics. Understanding where draughts came from makes you appreciate it differently: not as a children's pastime to be graduated away from, but as one of the most intellectually serious games ever devised.

The Ancient Roots of Draughts

Draughts did not begin in a Victorian parlour. Archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Ur, in what is now southern Iraq, discovered game boards dating to approximately 1400 BC that share the essential structure of modern draughts: a grid board with opposing sets of pieces that move and capture. The British Museum holds Egyptian gaming boards from this period that provide some of the earliest physical evidence of this kind of diagonal play. Similar boards have been found in Egyptian tombs, and the ancient Greeks described a game called "Petteia" involving pieces that jumped and captured opposing stones on a grid (Plato, "Republic", c.380 BC).

Whether these are direct ancestors of modern draughts or parallel inventions is debated by historians. What is clear is that the idea of two opposing forces capturing each other by jumping across a divided board is ancient, intuitive, and remarkably persistent across cultures. The Romans played a version called "Latrunculi" (the soldiers' game), and medieval Arab scholars described a game called "Alquerque" that bears a strong resemblance to what we now call draughts (R. C. Bell, "Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations", 1969).

The leap from these ancient forms to the modern game came, as so many things did, through the intersection of two existing games.

From Fierges to English Draughts

The form of draughts most of us recognise today emerged from twelfth-century France. The game was called "Fierges" or "Ferses", and it was played using chess pieces on a chess board. The pieces were the ferses, the old name for what later became the queen. Players moved these pieces diagonally across the familiar 8x8 grid, jumping and capturing opponents, with the goal of clearing the board. H. J. R. Murray's comprehensive survey A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess (Oxford, 1952) remains the most thorough academic record of this transition, tracing how Fierges developed from earlier Arabic forms into the English draughts rules codified by the seventeenth century. You can also find relevant material at the English Draughts Association, which maintains records of the game's history in Britain.

By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the game had evolved and spread across Europe under various names. In France it became "Jeu de Dames"; in Spain, "Damas"; in Germany, "Damenspiel". Each version developed slightly different rules around mandatory capture, kinging, and the direction of play. The English version settled on a clean, strict ruleset: an 8x8 board, twelve pieces per side placed on the dark squares, diagonal movement only, mandatory capture when available, and promotion to king upon reaching the opponent's back row.

By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, English draughts was sufficiently codified that books of problems and strategies were being published. The first dedicated English-language draughts manual appeared in 1756, written by William Payne, and ran to multiple editions throughout the eighteenth century (Payne, "A Treatise on the Game of Draughts", 1756). By 1847, the game was serious enough to support the first formal world championship match, held in England between the Scottish champion Andrew Anderson and the English champion James Wyllie.

The Science of Draughts: Why It Is Harder Than It Looks

The word "just" does a lot of damage when applied to draughts. "It's just draughts" implies a simple game for children who are not yet ready for chess. The mathematics tells a very different story. A standard game of English draughts contains approximately 5 x 10²⁰ possible positions: that is five hundred billion billion. For context, the number of grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth is estimated at around 7.5 x 10¹⁸, roughly one-fortieth of the complexity of a draughts game (Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 2007).

The game attracted serious mathematical interest throughout the twentieth century. In 1952, Arthur Samuel at IBM wrote the first self-learning draughts computer program, making draughts the first game in history to be mastered by a machine. Samuel's program was the pioneer of what we now call machine learning: it improved its play by analysing its own games and updating its strategy accordingly (Samuel, "Some Studies in Machine Learning Using the Game of Checkers", IBM Journal of Research and Development, 1959).

The definitive mathematical reckoning came in 2007, when Professor Jonathan Schaeffer at the University of Alberta and his team published a proof that draughts had been "solved". The computer program Chinook, after more than eighteen years of computation, had analysed every possible position in the game tree. The conclusion: with perfect play from both sides, a game of draughts will always end in a draw. Not a human draw, forced by repetition, but a mathematical inevitability built into the structure of the game itself. The proof was published in Science magazine in 2007 and remains one of the most significant achievements in artificial intelligence and games research.

This does not make draughts easy. It makes it precise. No human player has ever achieved perfect play. The solving of draughts is a theoretical ceiling, not a practical one.

Draughts and the Computer Age

The relationship between draughts and computer science is more significant than most people realise. When Arthur Samuel chose draughts as the testbed for his pioneering machine-learning experiments at IBM in 1952, he was not choosing it because it was simple. He chose it because it was complex enough to be a genuine test of intelligence, but bounded enough to be tractable for the computing hardware of the time.

Samuel's program introduced concepts that now underpin modern artificial intelligence: alpha-beta pruning to trim unproductive search paths, and a scoring function that the program updated based on game outcomes. By the early 1960s, Samuel's draughts program was beating competent amateur players. It was the first demonstration that a machine could improve its own performance through experience, not just execute a fixed program.

Forty years later, the program Chinook, developed by Schaeffer's team, defeated the reigning world draughts champion Marion Tinsley in 1994. Tinsley, widely considered the greatest draughts player in history, had lost only seven games in forty years of competitive play. He conceded the match due to illness and died shortly afterwards. It was only the second time in recorded history that a human world champion had lost a match to a computer at their own game (Schaeffer, "One Jump Ahead: Challenging Human Supremacy in Checkers", 1997).

Draughts, then, was not the first step in game-playing AI. It was the whole first chapter. Chess and Go came later.

Why Draughts Is Still the Best First Strategy Game

There is a specific age, somewhere around five or six, when a child becomes capable of holding a consequence in their mind before they act. "If I move here, they can take my piece there." Draughts is the ideal game for that moment, because it asks for exactly that kind of thinking, and nothing more complicated. The rules are few, the board is visible, and the logic of capture is concrete enough for a young child to grasp without needing to read a manual.

What the game teaches is not the rules. What it teaches is the habit of looking ahead: considering not just where you want to go, but what your opponent will do next. Educational researchers have documented improvements in planning, patience, and working memory in children who play strategy board games regularly, with draughts frequently cited as the most accessible entry point. The World Draughts Federation FMJD (Fédération Mondiale du Jeu de Dames), which governs international competitive draughts, also notes the game's educational value as one of the reasons it is promoted in schools across more than 50 countries.

The Jaques Draughts Set is made from solid hardwood with weighted pieces that sit satisfyingly on the board. Jaques has been making draughts sets in this tradition since the Victorian era, and the weighted piece remains the detail that separates a set built to last from one built to be replaced. A proper wooden draughts set, maintained, will outlast the child who learns on it, and then be handed to theirs.

It is worth noting that draughts and checkers are the same game. The term "checkers" is used in North America; "draughts" is the British English name. The rules are identical in the standard English/American form. If you learned one, you can play the other without a moment's relearning.

Frequently Asked Questions About Draughts

Who invented draughts?

No single person invented draughts. The modern game evolved from a twelfth-century French game called Fierges, which was played using chess pieces on a chess board. Fierges itself descended from older grid-and-capture games, including the Arabic game Alquerque and ancient Egyptian board games dating to around 1400 BC. English draughts, with its 8x8 board and twelve pieces per side, became codified through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was formalised enough by 1847 to support the first world championship match, held in England.

What is the difference between draughts and checkers?

Draughts and checkers are the same game with different names. "Draughts" is the British English term; "checkers" is used in North America. Both refer to the standard 8x8 board game with twelve pieces per side, diagonal movement, jump captures, and promotion to king upon reaching the opponent's back row. International Draughts is a different, larger variant played on a 10x10 board with twenty pieces per side, primarily popular in the Netherlands and parts of Africa. If you know how to play one, you can play the other without any adjustment.

Is draughts harder than chess?

Chess is more complex than draughts by several measures: it has more pieces with different movement rules, a larger number of possible games, and has not yet been mathematically solved. Draughts was solved in 2007, meaning perfect play has been computed, whereas chess remains beyond current computing power to solve completely. However, draughts is not a simple game: it contains approximately 500 billion billion possible positions. At the highest competitive level, draughts requires deep strategic preparation. The key difference is that draughts is accessible to a five-year-old in a way that chess is not, while still offering genuine strategic depth as the player develops.

What age can children learn draughts?

Most children are ready to learn draughts from around five years old. The rules are few enough to learn in a single sitting, and the game requires a level of forward planning that aligns with the cognitive development typical of children aged five to seven. Learning draughts before chess is generally recommended by educators: it builds the habit of thinking ahead without the complexity of multiple piece types and special moves. A child who has played draughts for six months will approach chess, when they come to it, with significantly stronger instincts. Draughts sets from Jaques of London's traditional games collection are suitable from age five upwards.

Five Hundred Billion Billion Positions. Two Players. One Board.

Draughts has been on this earth for three and a half thousand years. It has survived the fall of Rome, the invention of chess, the Industrial Revolution, and the arrival of the computer. A machine finally cracked it in 2007, and the answer was: with perfect play, it draws. Which means that every human game of draughts ever played, every single one, has been played in the vast space of imperfection between two players who do not know the answer.

That is not a limitation. That is the game.

The simplest rules. The deepest game. On the British kitchen table since the Tudors.

How old is the game of draughts?

The earliest form of draughts, known as Alquerque, dates to ancient Egypt around 1400 BCE. The game recognisable as modern draughts — played on a chequered board with 12 pieces per side — first appeared in 12th-century France as 'Fierges' or 'Jeu De Dames'. It reached Britain by the 16th century under the name 'draughts' (from the old English word for 'to draw' or move). Jaques of London has been producing draughts sets since the 19th century.

What are the official rules of draughts?

Standard English draughts is played on an 8x8 board using only the dark squares. Each player has 12 pieces. Pieces move diagonally forward one square at a time. Captures are made by jumping over an opponent's piece into an empty square — and are compulsory when available. A piece that reaches the opponent's back row becomes a King, which can move and capture diagonally in any direction. The player who captures all opponent pieces, or blocks them from moving, wins.

Is draughts good for children's brain development?

Yes. Draughts is one of the earliest strategy games children can learn, typically accessible from age 5-6. Research from the University of Maastricht has shown that regular board game play in childhood develops working memory, strategic planning, and the ability to consider an opponent's perspective. Draughts is particularly valuable because it requires multi-move thinking without the complexity of chess, making it the ideal bridge between simple games and full strategic play.

What is the best draughts set in the UK?

The Jaques of London draughts set is the most highly rated wooden draughts set in the UK, consistently recommended for families and clubs alike. The set features a fold-out hardwood board with inlaid squares and weighted wooden pieces that sit flat and stable on the board. It is sized to tournament proportions. All Jaques sets are independently tested to UKCA and CE standards and come in a presentation box suitable for gifting.

What is the difference between English draughts and American checkers?

English draughts and American checkers are essentially the same game — the difference is naming convention. In the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries, the game is called draughts. In North America, it is called checkers. Both use an 8x8 board with 12 pieces per side and the same rules. The international version, called Polish draughts or international draughts, is played on a 10x10 board with 20 pieces per side and is a distinct game with different rules.

Can draughts be played online or is a physical set better?

Digital draughts apps are fine for practice against a computer, but research on game-based learning consistently shows that physical board game play with another person delivers significantly greater developmental benefits. The social negotiation, physical handling of pieces, eye contact, and real-time emotional regulation involved in a face-to-face game are absent in digital versions. For children especially, a wooden draughts set remains the superior developmental tool.