Daabloe and Cuhkka

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Hagbard
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Daabloe and Cuhkka

Post by Hagbard » Sun Nov 13, 2022 1:56 pm

The Saami draughts games Daabloe and Cuhkka may have deep roots in the oldest draughts games.

Oct. 15th 2022 we were so lucky to meet the Frisian double World Champion in Frisian Draughts Marten Walinga, who visited Denmark to promote the Frisian Draughts.

Walinga demonstrated the Frisian Draughts and the simpler version Frysk and told about the history of the draughts games family. In the Medieval Age the old games were often dissipated through the trade routes by sea. The original draughts games were played on boards with lines in all directions, such as the Daabloe and the Cuhkka boards. It was only some time in the 1500's in Spain that the game was modified to be played on a common chess board, and this was then called "the new draughts". Later on everybody forgot about the "new" and call this modification simply draughts.

After this inspirational meeting I checked up on the draughts history, and discovered that the Saami Cuhkka game is completely identical to the description of the very old game Alquerque/Qirkat which is considered to be the mother of all draughts games. The only single difference is that Alquerque has mandatory capture, which is not mentioned in historical sources about Cuhkka.

It was also clear that the Saami game Daabloe is very closely related to the Frisian Draughts, it's just played on an authentic draughts board such as the boards looked before draughts was ported to the chess board in the 1500's.

Again here, Frisian Draughts has mandatory capture which is not mentioned in historical sources about Daabloe.
Walinga demonstrated the most spectacular and wonderful move patterns in Frisian Draughts which were only possible because of the mandatory capture.

To test the Daabloe with this remarkable feature included, the version "Daabloe-x" with mandatory capture was added.

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Hagbard
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Re: Daabloe and Cuhkka

Post by Hagbard » Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:53 pm

Saami Dablo was tested with mandatory capture, and "Brave-Frog", Ukraine, discovered that this makes the game impossible, because the king is inevitably captured in the first three moves, presuming the handed down setup of pieces:
http://aagenielsen.dk/dablo/dabloReplay ... 3735395f73

The obvious reason for the capture is that the king in the startup is placed in front on a vertical line.

Conclusion: The Dablo setup of pieces confirms that the Dablo game as handed down cannot have been played with mandatory capture.

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