Alquerque
Alquerque is a game that is popular in many Mediterranean countries, e.g. B. was played in Turkey , Spain , Portugal and Italy and is considered the forerunner of the checkers game and the Fanorona .
history
The game is believed to have originated in the Middle East . The first literary mention occurs in the 10th century . It can be found in the book of songs by the Persian poet Ali al Isfahani . With the invasion of the Moors , the game came to Spain. The oldest detailed description of the rules of the game, which can be found in King Alfonso's "Libro de los juegos", comes from there . The game also reached Central and South America via Spain and Portugal, where it was still popular in the early 20th century.
regulate
The playing field consists of five horizontal and vertical as well as six diagonal lines. In other words: from four joined playing fields of the so-called small mill (vertical, horizontal and diagonally crossed square). Twelve game pieces are placed on the crossing points, with the middle point remaining free. As with checkers, you draw from point to point and beat by jumping over.
A stone can be moved along a line from any point to any unoccupied neighboring point. If a stone can hit it must do so or it will be removed from the board. The question is discussed whether there was already a promotion of a normal piece to a "queen" at the Alquerque, if this had reached the opposing baseline.
New editions
Several publishers brought out the game under this or a similar name as a historical game or for advertising purposes. There are outputs of:
- Hoenning design by the author Grotz from 1990
- Clemens Gerhards in his Holzspiele-Verlag
- the Wünnenberg Verlag 1999
literature
- Robert C. Bell: Board and table games from many civilizations. Revised edition. Dover Books, New York NY 1979, ISBN 0-486-23855-5 .
- Alfons X. (Castile) : The book of games (= ludography. Game and games. Vol. 1). Translated and commented by Ulrich Schädler and Ricardo Calvo . LIT Verlag, Vienna et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-643-50011-3 , pp. 291-292, pp. 297-303.
- Arie van der Stoep: Damspel in relatie tot schaakspel en alquerque. Self-published, Hooge Zwaluwe 2005, ISBN 90-70871-32-7 , pp. 130-166.
- Govert Westerveld: The History of Alquerque-12 . Lulu Press (Books on Demand)
- Vol. 1: Spain and France . 2013, ISBN 978-1-291-66267-2 .
- Vol. 2: Remaining countries . 2015, ISBN 978-1-326-17935-9 .
Web links
- Precise description
- Alquerque in the Luding games database
- Android version of Alquerque
- Ad-free Android version Alquerque, at least Android 4.4.2 (API-19)
- Browser HTML5 / JavaScript version Alquerque , humans and computer gamers in every combination, game rules and game options. Sources: https://github.com/OMerkel/Alquerque