Checkers was boring. I mean, sure, I had three brothers and at least as many cousins (sometimes more) to play against. After a while, though, only one of them could beat me reliably. Checkers was too... easy. Then Dad taught me chess, and checkers went out the window. Chess was for adults, and I was growing up. Checkers was a child's game, right? Chess with training wheels?

Well, yes and no. It was a child's game only because children were playing it. I downloaded a checkers program this weekend, and after getting my butt kicked several times (I did win one game, out of about six), I remembered that my roommate mentioned liking checkers. So, I installed it on his computer and watched him get *his* butt kicked a few times. Then we started thinking. We switched to two-player mode and had a proper human versus human game. And you know what?

We discovered that checkers isn't quite the child's game that we remember from bygone years. It's every bit as full of tricks and traps as chess, even if a little simplistic in its move choices, even if a little weird with its forced jumps that enable you to draw your opponent's pieces out and force double and triple jumps. No, it ain't chess (my roommate is thankful for that), but somewhere, somehow--sometime when I wasn't looking--it grew up into a sophisticated game. It taunts you mercilessly, makes you think and then reconsider. It tests your powers of visualization and logic.

Checkers is an interesting game.