Henry Ernest Dudeney/Modern Puzzles/118 - The Improvised Draughts-Board

Modern Puzzles by Henry Ernest Dudeney: $118$

The Improvised Draughts-Board

Some Englishmen at the front during the Great War wished to pass a restful hour at a game of draughts.

They had coins and small stones for the men, but no board.

However, one of them found a piece of linoleum as shown n the illustration,

and, as it contained the right number of squares, it was decided to cut it and fit the pieces together to form a board,

blacking some of the squares afterwards for convenience in playing.

An ingenious Scotsman showed how this could be done by cutting the stuff in two pieces only,

and it is a really good puzzle to discover how he did it.

Cut the linoleum along the lines into two pieces that will fit together and form the board, eight by eight.

Linguistic Note

Non-British readers may need to know that draughts (pronounced drafts) is what the game checkers is known as in Britain.

Also note that the Great War is what the First World War ($\text {1914}$ – $\text {1918}$) was known as before the Second World War ($\text {1939}$ – $\text {1945}$) surpassed it in horror.

Sources

• 1926: Henry Ernest Dudeney: Modern Puzzles ... (previous) ... (next): Geometrical Problems: Patchwork Puzzles: $118$. -- The Improvised Draughts-Board
• 1968: Henry Ernest Dudeney: 536 Puzzles & Curious Problems ... (previous) ... (next): Geometrical Problems: Dissection Puzzles: $341$. The Improvised Checkerboard