This book should be considered a historical book, as it is the draughts' career of Baba Sy, a prominent Senegalese player. He was able to be the best in the world without reading any books. He had a natural talent and was a self-made man thanks to the game of checkers. I have witnessed the achievements of the great Baba Sy and I have been in the early stage of the great players like Harm Wiersma and Ton Sijbrands, on which I predicted in 1964 that they would be a future world champions. So I know the mentality that one must have to succeed in this mind sport. My 40 year stay in Spain and my research on the Moors permits me to know more about the Islamic custom. And so I am now in a much better position than 40 years ago to comment properly on the life of Baba Sy.

This book should be considered a historical book, as it is the draughts' career of Baba Sy, a prominent Senegalese player. He was able to be the best in the world without reading any books. He had a natural talent and was a self-made man thanks to the game of checkers. I have witnessed the achievements of the great Baba Sy and I have been in the early stage of the great players like Harm Wiersma and Ton Sijbrands, on which I predicted in 1964 that they would be a future world champions. So I know the mentality that one must have to succeed in this mind sport. My 40 year stay in Spain and my research on the Moors permits me to know more about the Islamic custom. And so I am now in a much better position than 40 years ago to comment properly on the life of Baba Sy.

Since 1987 we have defended in articles that the Spanish queen Isabella I of Castile (Isabel la Catolica) was the new chess queen (dama) on the chessboard. Other publications were in 1990, 1994, 1997, and 2004. And of course, Marilyn Yalom studied our book during her visit to the National Library in The Hague (Holland) before she wrote Birth of the Chess Queen in 2004. In her book one cannot see that in 1987, 1990, and 1994 we already published material about Isabel la Catolica (Isabel I of Castile) being the new powerful dama or chess queen on the chessboard. In other words we can state here that we have been studying Spanish history and its chess literature for over 30 years. Since 2003 we have also known the development of the new bishop in chess."

Every checkers player knows about Woldouby's famous position. This 21 year-old Senegalese drew a lot of attention in Paris in 1910 when he won against all challengers in his store located in the Senegalese village of the Exposition of Jardin d'Acclimatation zoologique. No one understood how this player could win all the games that fast. After Amadou Kandie Woldouby was the second African who participated in a checkers tournament in Paris since he became the city champion in 1911. In 1911 he left France and no one knew his whereabouts since then. In this biography we show that Weiss' golpe (shot) actually was Woldouby's golpe, since he won against Isidore Weiss with it. On the other hand we want to show that Woldouby returned to Senegal in 1911 to take the place of a checkers runner-up in 1913. His biography deserves a worthy place in the history of checkers, as he was the prominent predecessor of the famous Senegalese checkers player Baba Sy.

Chess was a royal game while draughts was played by the seamen and soldiers and known as the "game of the proletariat". Such terms clearly classify the first game as noble and worthwhile and the second as silly or worse. Many people like to speak about the superiority of chess over the draughts. However, "simple" game does not mean "easy" game. In fact, such people only show their ignorance about these two games. Chess is not harder than draughts. The opposite is true - draughts on a 100-square board is more difficult than chess. Draughts is not easier to play well than chess. The game may seem more monotonous or less interesting than chess, but playing it really well is challenging. Any really good draughts player can play blindfolded just as really good chess players do. In this book you will observe the ideas and comments of a lot of chess and draughts players on the question of which game is more difficult - chess or draughts. You will observe that most of them came to the conclusion that draughts is more difficult than chess. It is interesting to observe that Pierre Gestem who was world champion of draughts and bridge and also a very good chess player observed that for him draughts was the most difficult game in the world. Other world champions of draughts and other chess players were of the opinion that draughts on the 100-square board is much harder than chess. Therefore, draughts can no longer be thought of as a simple game due to people's ignorance. On the other hand, the question always arises whether we can compare these two games as they are so different.

This encyclopedic volume provides the rules and methods of play for more than 180 different games: Ma-jong, Hazard, Wei-ch'i (Go), Backgammon, Pachisi, and many others. Over 300 photographs and line drawings.

Originally published: Danville, Ill.: School-Aid Co., [1953]