Most important is ease of reach - the deeper the board, the farther you must reach for checkers in the far corners. There is an aesthetic difference too, as a shorter board depth yields a “wide” rectangular playing field, while a deeper board like the P-40 has a square playing field (22″ x 22″ measured inside the rails). There is no “right or wrong” when it comes to board depth, but you may notice the difference in a few ways. The three examples below illustrate the range you’ll find on modern boards - anything from just under a single checker to well over two checkers’ worth of separation. The thing to note is how many checkers will fit in between the stacks of five checkers on your 6-points. About 1/8″ of lateral play within a quadrant is all you want, so that checkers slot unambiguously onto their points.īut what about the depth of the playing field (the distance measured across the board between you and your opponent)? It turns out that there is quite a bit of variation in the ratio of width to depth among boards, resulting in a substantially different feel - so you should take notice of this aspect of rival sets before settling on one. Second – and much worse – there is far too much horizontal “play” between the checkers, so they tend to slosh around on the field, requiring constant effort to keep them properly aligned. First, the points are not quite tall enough, so just four checkers make it appear to be nearly “full.” It’s more standard for the fifth checker to nearly, or only just, cover the tip of the point. The attractive wooden set pictured here has two problems. Smaller sets are also less friendly to spectators, a vital consideration in chouettes. As checkers get even smaller, to the 1.25″ range, they become a bit more difficult to manipulate, and may get knocked around by the dice. Sets with smaller 1.5″ checkers are generally very comfortable, and gain some ease of portability. Before investing in a plus-size set, you should try it out with these aspects of “playability” in mind. However, if a maker reduces the space between opposing points in the middle of the board (see discussion below), a comfortable reach may be achieved even with these larger game pieces. While some players love to play with big 2″ checkers, many of their opponents will find the size makes playing more difficult, both physically (straining to reach checkers) and mentally (needing to look at different parts of the board separately). This size also allows a player to take in the entire board position with a single gaze. The size of the checkers will largely dictate the proportions of the playing field, and you will find that most sets with 1.75″ checkers provide a comfortable reaching distance to checkers in all corners of the board. The 1.75″ (4,45 cm) checker size is overwhelmingly popular in American tournament play, and is therefore generally referred to as “Tournament Size” on this side of the Atlantic.
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