Game for checkers?

Long before Pente. Eons before Gigamic. Checkers was the ultimate simple game of strategy. For some reason, I’ve always felt Checkers is to Chess, as Billiards is to Snooker. There are a few simple moves to learn, and then there’s the simple matter of gaining mastery of the table. Chess is fussy. Checkers is not. Chess anoints

grandmasters and makes room for the idiosyncrasies of its feted heroes. Checkers is what you played with your father and uncles. You played checkers with pride. Pitting your skill against the adults’. I never heard of eager parents grooming their children to become checkers prodigies!
12 red and 12 black men face off on a 8x8 board. Each of the 12 combatants are arrayed in three rows. Players move alternately along the diagonal rows of dark squares. Move to unoccupied dark squares, and head to the enemy backline. Jump the enemy and onto an empty square behind him, and you’ve captured him. Your captive is removed from the board. There is giddy pleasure to be had in jumping over multiple enemies on a single turn, each time landing on an empty square, before vaulting over the next enemy. In one turn, you could swing right, left and right again. Forgetting to capture results in you forfeiting the piece of the could-have-been captor. This rule allow you to draw out the enemy and stage elaborately devious traps!
Reach the enemy backline and your man transforms into a king. A captured piece placed on the original piece heralds your new found privileged and powerful status. Ordinary troops can only move in forward diagonals, one square at a time, unless jumping the enemy. Kings can move in forward and backward diagonals, sweeping across empty diagonals. It’s a machine gun versus a bow and arrow sort of situation. The more kings you can assemble, the happier your state of mind!
Elimination of the enemy is your goal. You also win if you wedge your opponent into a position where he can no longer move. Checkers is ruthless. It requires cunning. Show no mercy. Plan your strategy and implement it, to the bitter finish. This is where strategy board games began for me. It’s time to start over!

The author may be contacted at arup_kavan@yahoo.com [1]