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Now in the other direction. Checkers does not require majority capture to precede either. Italian Checkers is otherwise identical, but features an impressive hierarchy of priorities of capture, involving not only the number of the captured pieces, but also whether they be men or kings, and even distinguishing between the order in which they are to be captured, not to mention which piece makes the capture. Learning to see through this labyrinth of priorities takes a lot of time, and eventually leads to positions in which it all matters. That's inevitable. The question is: are these positions anymore interesting than those arising from, say, simply introducing majority capture Draughts' style in Checkers? That should be very doubtful. The premiss of the rules of Italian Checkers seems to be that more control over relative details renders a better game. Thus it ends up with a complex hierarchy of priorities needing a mass of words to explain, without altering the game in any essential way. |
It's all about effectiveness and the balance between strategy and tactics. International Draughts' precedence of majority capture hits the bullseye in both categories.
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(2) (3) The logic of (2) is that it's hard to argue the alternatives. Why wouldn't a piece be allowed to traverse a vacant square? How can you kill a piece that's already dead? |
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| Rule (3) is a different story because in Turkish Draughts, for one, it doesn't apply. A capturing piece in Turkish Draughts is like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up the pieces in the process of capture. If the capturing piece happens to be a king, it can even swallow a piece that it wouldn't be able to capture if the move were to be completed before removal of the pieces: by eating away its cover first and then returning for the piece itself. In principle a king might get more out of a capture that way, than would be possible in International Draughts. So what's wrong with it? It hasn't got style. That's what wrong with it. |