This one is a near 8x8 classic

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 #17.

Breakthrough was designed by William Daniel 'Dan' Troyka in 2000 and was apparently originally played on a 7x7 board.

After the size of the board was changed, it won the 2001 8x8 Game Design Competition, sponsored by About Board Games, Abstract Games Magazine and the Strategy Gaming Society.

Winning the 2001 contest really makes it an obvious inclusion for ‘Project 8x8 & 48’ and certainly the game scores highly in terms of its pure simplicity – although that does not mean strategy and tactics come easily here. (It should be noted this one can be played on a 10x10 board, each players having 30 pieces.)

In Breakthrough, players each start with 16 pieces aligned on the two rows closest to them – a very standard starting array in many games here.

Players alternate moving one of their own pieces per turn, trying to reach the opposite side of the board. The first player to do so wins.

A piece can move forward or diagonally forward to an adjacent empty cell. Alternatively, it can capture an enemy piece diagonally forward.

Captures are not compulsory – which is a tad different from most ‘checker-esque’ games.

Captures cannot be chained either in Breakthrough.

This game is all about positional play as the two forces approach each other. There is something of a feeling of ‘detente’ as forces drudge toward the eventual battle line.

Then one player will make the plunge and the battle is fully on. The first to break the line and get a runner to the other side will win most times.

This game resonates less with me personally than many in this project. The start a bit slow, the end a bit anticlimactic for me. Still Breakthrough is one players need to try for themselves as many do like it quite a lot.