What is draughts?

gettnbk2me asked me to clarify something.

The Palestine project takes place in the city of Haarlem, which is about twenty minutes by bus from Amsterdam. I live in Amstelveen, which is one minute from Amsterdam.

At the Easter tournament everyone plays 7 games of draughts over 5 days. The one who gets the most points wins.

Now for the crucial question: what is draughts?

I think most Americans will know what checkers is. Draughts is the name they use in Britain for a game which looks much like it. The way we play it differs from both checkers and the way the Brits play draughts. We play a more internationally oriented variant. It is like checkers, but it is played on a board with 100 squares instead of 64. Furthermore, there are some different rules with which I don’t want to bore you (also because I don’t know all the specifics of checkers).

Now I will also try to explain what draughts is for those of you who have not heard of checkers (some of my friends didn’t). You all must now what chess is, right? Well, draughts is something like that, but we play it starting with 20 pieces each. Unlike chess all our pieces have the same abilities. They can move 1 square diagonally in the direction of the opponent.  

I like draughts a lot. It exercises your mind and you do not have to run or anything. Also, I must say that I am rather good at it. I am in the top 200 of the world rankings (on an unofficial list). When talking about this game it is always best to say ’10 by 10 international draughts’. This is because most countries have their own rules (England, Russia, the Czech Republic, The United States) and it is easy to get confused.