Premier Mini-Giant Draughts
A "larger than life" draughts set will attract crowds and bring a new dimension to any recreation area or garden. Mini-giant draughts sets are eye-catching but are also designed to be played. The pieces are made from a strong and durable PVC material that is UV protected and completely waterproof.
Click on the picture to enlarge.
Made by Rolly in Germany this is a great Mini-Giant Draughts Set.
The draughts pieces are plastic. They come with short rods so that a king consisting of 2 pieces can be moved together.
- Piece height: 1¾ inches / 4.5cm
- Piece base diameter: 4¼ inches / 11 cm
- For chequerboard size of squares: 6 - 12 inches / 15 - 30cm
- Despatches/stores in: 1 Carton measuring 38 x 30 x 17cm - weight: 2.5kg
Great for children from 4 years old and up.
Rolly also make a matching Mini Giant Chess Set.
Note that the draughts / checkers pieces can also be used for Nine Mens Morris and there is a board available for Nine Mens Morris which is also suitable for draughts / checkers. So if you buy the Nine Mens Morris board and the Checkers / Morris pieces, you get two games instead of one.
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Rolly make a lawn-friendly board to go with the set on this page - 150cm (5 feet) square. |
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Change to $  Change to  |
UK pounds (ex.VAT) |
Pounds (incl. VAT) |
Typical ETA in wkg days |
Add to basket |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rolly Mini-Giant Draughts pieces (without board) |
£59.04 | £67.90 | 1 + transit time | ||
Rolly Mini-Giant Lawn-friendly Chequerboard |
£66.00 | £75.90 | 1 + transit time | ||
Rolly Giant Nine Mens Morris board (lawn-friendly, also suitable for draughts / checkers) |
£72.96 | £83.90 | 1 + transit time | ||
For an immediate quote and ETA, add to the basket & select your location. |
Creating your own Board
Many people opt to create a permanent board on hard ground. You can use patio tiles, or paving slabs or just paint squares on clear ground. For these Mini Giant Draughts sets, squares of around 150-300mm square are recommended (ideally 200-250mm but the 2 pictures above show a patio with squares 150mm and that works fine). See our Chess board painting FAQ for more info.
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The Origin of Draughts
Draughts is a very ancient game indeed, the origins of which, like Chess, aren't completely clear. However, early forms of Alquerque, its venerable ancestor, have been found in Egypt dating at least as early as 600BC. Alquerque boards can be seen carved into the stone slabs which form the roof of the great temple at Kurna, Egypt, which was built in 1400BC (of course, they might have been carved at any point since). The game of Alquerque was played like Draughts on a 5 x 5 point board with the pieces starting in a non-symmetrical pattern. The game clearly had staying power - it is mentioned under the name of Quirkat in the Arabic work Kitab-al Aghani, the author of which died in 976 AD and was first brought to Europe by the Moors during their invasion of Spain. It was recorded as Alquerque in the Alfonso X Manuscript which was written between 1251 - 1282 at the command of Alfonso X, King of Leon and Castile.
The Madagascan game of Fanorona is a descendant of Alquerque. It seems to have been invented around 1680 AD and is still played today.
Sometime later, around 1100, possibly in the South of France, somebody decided to play Alquerque on a Chess board instead of the standard Alquerque board. The game was played with 12 pieces on each side and was called Fierges or Ferses at first although this changed to Dames later. The game did not force a player to take enemy pieces when the opportunity presented itself. The compulsory rule forcing a player to take whenever possible was introduced in France around 1535, the resulting new game being called Jeu Force. At this point the old game without huffing became known as Le Jeu Plaisant De Dames or Plaisant for short. Jeu Force is the game played in England today under the name of Draughts and the game was taken to America and called Checkers.
Most of the rest of Western Europe took to playing a different development of Le Jeu Plaisant De Dames which appeared in Paris in 1727 and which is now the internationally recognised game of Polish Draughts or Continental Draughts. This game is superior in complexity to English draughts by virtue of the fact that it is played on a board ten squares by ten squares and that capturing moves have an extended scope. It isn't believed to have been invented in Poland at all and they apparently know it as 'French Draughts' there! Polish Draughts was probably the name given in order to make it sound slightly different to West European ears in the same way as for Chinese Checkers and Russian Billiards. Some areas of South East Asia go one better and play on a board of twelve by twelve squares and 24 pieces each side. The Canadian Draughts variant is also played upon a board this size.
You can learn more about the History of Draughts from The Online Guide to Traditional Games.