Checkerboard
Board with an alternating square pattern on which games are played
title: "Checkerboard" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["draughts", "game-equipment"] description: "Board with an alternating square pattern on which games are played" topic_path: "general/draughts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboard" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Board with an alternating square pattern on which games are played ::
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Chess.board.fabric.png" caption="A checkerboard"] ::
A checkerboard (American English) or chequerboard (British English) is a game board of checkered pattern on which checkers (also known as English draughts) is played. Most commonly, it consists of 64 squares (8×8) of alternating dark and light color, typically green and buff (official tournaments), black and red (consumer commercial), or black and white (printed diagrams). An 8×8 checkerboard is used to play many other games, including chess, whereby it is known as a chessboard. Other rectangular square-tiled boards are also often called checkerboards. In The Netherlands, however, a dambord (checker board) has 10 rows and 10 columns for 100 squares in total (see article International draughts).
Games and puzzles using checkerboards
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/The_Childrens_Museum_of_Indianapolis_-_Checkers.jpg" caption="A game of checkers within the permanent collection of [[The Children's Museum of Indianapolis"] ::
Martin Gardner featured puzzles based on checkerboards in his November 1962 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. A square checkerboard with an alternating pattern is used for games including:
- Amazons
- Chapayev
- Chess and some of its variants (see chessboard)
- Czech draughts
- Draughts, also known as checkers
- Fox games
- Frisian draughts
- Gounki
- International draughts
- Italian draughts
- Lines of Action
- Pool checkers
- Russian checkers
The following games require an 8×8 board and are sometimes played on a chessboard.
Gallery
File:Empty wooden chessboard.jpg|An empty 8×8 checkerboard File:Font Awesome 5 solid chess-board.svg|An empty 8×8 checkerboard diagram File:International draughts.jpg|The opening setup of international draughts, which uses a 10×10 checkerboard File:CheckersStandard.jpg|English draughts tournament standard
Mathematical description
Given a grid with m rows and n columns, a function f(m,n),
\displaystyle {f(m,n)} = \begin{cases} \text{black} & \text{if}\ m \equiv n \pmod 2 , , \ \text{white} & \text{if}\ m \not\equiv n \pmod 2\ \end{cases}
or, alternatively,
\displaystyle {f(m,n)} = \begin{cases} \text{black} & \text{if}\ m + n \text{ is even}, \ \text{white} & \text{if}\ m + n \text{ is odd} \ \end{cases}
The element (m,n)=(0,0) is black and represents the lower left corner of the board.
Encoding
In Unicode, checkerboard characters are encoded at various code points:
References
References
- Weisstein, Eric W.. "Checkerboard".
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