Damang Pinoy
Part 1
Introduction
One of the famous traditional
board game in the Philippines is
Dama. It usually is played
during past time with friends. It is
a game played with the use of a
wooden board and have 12
"pitsas"(pieces in dama) made
from bamboo, stones or bottle
caps.
Definition of Draughts or Checkers (Dama)
Draughts is a game made in
Alquerque and derived from the
verb “to draw” or “to move”.
Draughts in British English or
Checkers in American English is a
board game played by two
players which game pieces are
moving diagonally and captures
by jumping over an opponent
pieces.
Historical Background of Checkers (Dama)
One of the oldest board games is the “Checkers”
in North America and “Draught”(pronounced as
“draft”) in Europe.
Its trace was unearthed in an archeological
dig in the ancient city of Ur in Southern
Mesopotamia, which now modern day Iraq.
The Alquerque have the similar game using a
5x5 board which is known to have existed in
ancient Egypt as far back as 1400 B. C.
Though in the year 1100 A.D., an inventive Frenchman
though of playing the game on chess board and
increased the number of pieces for each player to 12 and
was called “Fierges” or “Ferses” but it was more often
called as “Le Plaisant De Dames” as it was considered a
women’s social game.
During the mid of 1500s, the game was
written in books. With its own written
rules, the game settled in England
where it was known as "Draughts" and
in America where it was known as
"Checkers".
1847, the first championship
award in Checkers was given
to James Wyllie
James Wyllie
In 1952, Arthur L. Samuel created the first checkers
program that was used by a computer. Gradually,
these game programs were improved as
computer speed and capacities increased.
Ancient Checkers Game
Similar games of draughts and
checkers have been played
for over a millennium. In the
British Museum are some
artifacts of ancient Egyptian
checkerboards which were
found in burial chambers, and
the game was even played by
Queen Hatasu
Queen Hatasu
A similar Arabic game called
Quirkat or al-qirq was played on
a 5×5 board as mentioned in the
10th-century work of Kitab al-
Aghani. The game was brought to
Spain by the Moors where it
became known as Alquerque or
the Spanish derivation of its
Arabic name. The rules are written
and given in the 13th-century Alquerque board and setup
book of Libro de los juegos.
Crowning
In 1243, the rule of crowning
was used by the 13th
century as mentioned in the
“Philip Mouskat's Chronique”
Philip Mouskat
In 18th-century, Samuel
Johnson, an English
author, wrote a book
about draughts which is
the earliest book in
English about the game
Samuel Johnson
Later, the pieces became
known as "dames". The
game with a rule of forcing
players to take capture
whenever possible was
introduced in France in
around 1535 where it is as
“Jeu force” which is
identical to modern English
draughts.
Force Capture
Part 2
Checkers International
Checkers international also called
“International Draughts” where it is
played on a 10x10 square board and the
“dark squares” are being used in a play.
Each player begins the game with 20
pieces, or checkers placed on the four
rows closest to him or her.
The objective of international
checkers:
1. to prevent your opponent
from being able to move.
2. capturing all of your
opponent's pieces,
3. blocking your opponent so
that none of his or her pieces
on the board can be moved.
A draw occurs if neither player
can prevent the other from International Draughts
making a move.
Game Pieces
There are two kinds of pieces in international checkers.
When the game starts, you have only regular checkers
which look like this:
If a checker moves all the way to your
opponent's end of the board and remains
there at the end of the turn, then it becomes
Regular checkers a King.
The regular checkers and the King have
different ways of moving and jumping.
King
Capturing or Jumping
➢Regular checker
➢King checker
➢Regular Checker
If no jump is available, a regular
checker can only move one
space diagonally forward to an
unoccupied square.
Here is a red checker jumping Here is a red checker jumping
forward: backward:
A checker does not become
a King if, while making
multiple jumps, it lands
momentarily on the
opponent's end of the board
and then jumps back to the
middle of the board. To
become a King, a checker
must be on the opponent's
end of the board when the
turn is over.
King’ movements
If no jump is available, the
King can move any distance,
forward or backward, along
an unobstructed diagonal. It
must land in an unoccupied
square. In this picture, the red
King can move to any square
with a yellow dot.
The King can capture an opponent's
checker or King by jumping over it.
The King can jump any distance along
a diagonal as long as the following
conditions are met:
1. The piece that will be captured must
be on the same diagonal as the King.
2. The King cannot jump over a piece
of its own color.
3. The King can only jump over one
piece at a time.
End of Part 1 & 2
