Alquerque

Alquerque Opening Position

Alternate Names

Alquerque de Doze, Marro, and Qirkat (Moors).

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

An Alquerque board and twelve each of black and white counters are required to play.

History

Alquerque originates from Egypt by at least 600 BCE. Alquerque was introduced into Spain by the Moors and its first mention in literature dates to 1283 CE in a manuscript by the Spaniard, Alfonso the Wise. Alquerque is likely the precursor game to modern Checkers and Fanorona.

Objective

The objective is to capture all of the opponent’s counters, the first player to achieve this being the winner. A player may also win by blocking any legal move by his opponent. If it is agreed that a draw seems imminent, the player with more counters may declare victory.

Play

Counters are placed at all the intersections except the middle one, as above. Alternate turns between players entail a move along a line to any neighboring vacant intersection in any direction or a jump over an opponent’s counter in a straight line to a vacant intersection beside the counter being jumped. Counters are captured by being jumped over and are then removed from the board. Double or multiple captures in one move are permitted and direction may be changed after each enemy counter has been jumped. On any turn that it is possible to take an opponent’s counter, it is compulsory to do so. If a player does not make the compulsory capture on their turn by failing to notice it, their opponent may then huff (remove) that counter as a bonus before their next move.

Variations

If both players agree prior to commencing the game, capture need not be compulsory.

There are many variations in the initial setup: one entails each player commencing with only ten counters each, the middle row of counters being omitted. Also, there are variations commencing with only eight counters per player: the middle row and the outside points of the second and fourth rows being omitted. American Indian variations often interchange the outside counters of the middle row.

The game Fetach or Quirach from Morocco is the same as Alquerque but restricts counters to forward movements (diagonally or orthogonally forward) until they become promoted at the opposite end of the board.

Sources

  1. Provenzo, Asterie Baker and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. Play It Again, Historic Board Games You Can Make and Play. Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1981. ISBN 0-13-683367-5

  2. Pritchard, David. The Family Book of Games. Brockhampton Press, 1994. ISBN 1-86019-021-9

  3. Pentagames. Compiled by Pentagram. 1990. Fireside, Simon & Schuster Inc. ISBN 0-671-72529-7.