{{Short description|Board with an alternating square pattern on which games are played}} {{For|the pattern|Checkerboard pattern}} thumb|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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Checkerboard.html|title=Checkerboard|first=Eric W.|last=Weisstein|website=mathworld.wolfram.com}}</ref> 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== [[File:The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis - Checkers.jpg|thumb|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 * Checkers, also known as draughts * 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. * Arimaa * Breakthrough * Crossings * Mak-yek * Makruk * Martian Chess
==Gallery== <gallery mode="nolines" widths="200px"> 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 </gallery>
==Mathematical description== Given a grid with <math>m</math> rows and <math>n</math> columns, a function <math>f(m,n)</math>,
<math> \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} </math>
or, alternatively,
<math> \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} </math>
The element <math>(m,n)=(0,0)</math> is black and represents the lower left corner of the board.
==Encoding== In Unicode, checkerboard characters are encoded at various code points: * {{unichar|2427|Symbol for delete square checker board form}} * {{unichar|2428|Symbol for delete rectangular checker board form}} <!--* {{unichar|2429|Symbol for delete medium shade form}}--> * {{unichar|1F67E|Checker board}} * {{unichar|1F67F|Reverse checker board}} * {{unichar|1FB95|Checker board fill}} * {{unichar|1FB96|Inverse checker board fill}}
==See also== * Chessboard * Croatian checkerboard * Hexmap
==References== {{wiktionary}} <References/>
Category:Draughts Category:Game equipment