The earliest mentions of the game were by the famous philosophers Plato and Homer. They detailed a game originating in ancient Egypt, which involved capturing your opponent’s pieces. Their claims were verified after the discovery of pieces of a game greatly resembling draughts were found within the burial chambers of the Egyptian Queen Hatsu.

The oldest known versions of the game were found during an archaeological digin Ur, now present-day Iraq and dates back to 3000 BC.

The game evolved during the great Roman era. There are many historical references which imply that an earlier counterpart of draughts was played by Roman soldiers during the Trojan war. Similar game sets, which date back to around 5000 years ago, were also found in Italy, China and India.

A similar game called Alquerque, derived from its Egyptian counterpart was played throughout the Middle East. It features the principle of leaping to capture your opponent’s pieces. During the rule of the Moors the game entered Europe firstly via Spain, later France, and thereafter the rest of the European continent.

During 1100 AD, the French further modified the game to include a much bigger 64-sided square board and increased the number of pieces held by each player. They also introduced the concept of crowning, which involves topping a game piece with another piece, thus making it a ‘king’.

By the 17th century, draughts had become a much-loved game in Britain.

The game of Draughts is played on a standard Chess board 64 black and white chequered squares. Each player has 12 pieces normally in the form of fat round counters.Black always plays first. Each player's pieces are placed on the 12 black squares nearest to that player.

The white squares are not used at all in the game - the pieces only move diagonally and so stay on the black squares throughout.The objective of the game is to take all of the opponent's pieces or to produce a position such that the opponent is unable to move.

Players take turns to move a piece of their own colour. Any piece that reaches the far edge of the board is immediately crowned and is thereafter known as a "King". The act of crowning is a physical one - another piece of the same shade is placed on top of the piece in order to distinguish it from an ordinary piece.

Until a piece is "crowned", it can only move and capture in a diagonally forwards direction. Kings are allowed to move and capture diagonally forwards and backward. Ordinary pieces can capture Kings.

Whenever a piece has an opponent's piece adjacent to it and the square immediately beyond the opponent's piece is vacant, the opponent's piece can be captured.

A piece is taken by simply hopping over it into the vacant square beyond and removing it from the board. Unlike an ordinary move, a capturing move can consist of several such hops.