Run your 'horses' to a win in Renpaarden

I recently posed a question with the Abstract Nation on Facebook asking what were three games players preferred on an 8x8 checkerboard.

Not surprisingly there was a lot of commonality in answers and IMHO a few gems missed.

So over the coming weeks I’ll offer a few short reviews of what I see as the best games to be played on an 8x8 checkerboard with the added constraint you have only two sets of 24 pieces – basically you buy two matching common checker sets.

This is #8.

Renpaarden is a game which really shows the versatility of what I am now terming the ‘8x8 & 24 system’ really is.

This one from designer Fred Horn back in 1981 is actually played on a 9x9 board, so in this case you play on the points of your checkerboard – yes it is that simple.

In this one the checkers take on the movement of knights from chess which already hints at some fun ahead.

On your turn you move a piece and like the chess knight can jump over pieces to get where it is going.

In Renpaarden – which apparently means Racehorses in Dutch – a piece can also jump to a cell occupied by a enemy stone without capture, and in that case, it can jump again. This move can be repeated until the stone lands on an empty cell.

This is where the fun of this one ramps up. Finding and/or planning chained jumps are a key to success.

The goal of Renpaarden is to be the first player that moves all your stones to the opponent's initial position.

Games are generally close, and a chained jump or two can be the difference, as can getting close to home is a good position so you are not wasting moves getting into a final spot. Games are tense as a result and fun too.

This one clearly owes its existence to the classic Halma (1884), and the more recent Chinese Checkers (1893). This one is better – although it’s only two-player – where Chinese Checkers is still for four-to-six.

Interestingly, expanding to 9x9 games doesn’t actually add a lot of options to ‘the system’ but Renpaarden is lots of fun, and there just might be a sister 9x9 before I am done.