Scholars did not consider it necessary to grant Spain the honour of being the creative country of the game of draughts and of the new modality in the chess game with the new dama. Both the alquerque-3 as the alquerque-9 games were known in Roman times. Completely different is the situation for the alquerque-12 game. It is said that the alquerque has its origin in Egypt. Perhaps this is the case for the alquerque-3 and alquerque-9 games, but never for alquerque-12 game. Some authors claim that the alquerque-12 game is a Greek or Roman game, but the great expert of these games, Dr. Ulrich Schadler, discards it. This book is the first proof that the alquerque-12 game was not popular at all in France, but much more in Spain, where the new chess game and draughts game were invented.

The first Spanish books about the game of draughts have a very high standard and date from the XVI century, while the first French book comes from the XVII century and the game description is very basic. Contrarily to this evidence scholars did not consider it necessary to grant Spain the honour of being the country of creation of the game of draughts and of the new modality in chess with the new dama. Both the Alquerque-3 and the Alquerque-9 games were known in Roman times. The situation is completely different for the Alquerque-12 game. It is said that the Alquerque has its origin in Egypt. Perhaps this is the case for the Alquerque-3 and Alquerque-9 games, but never for Alquerque-12. Some authors claim that the Alquerque-12 game is a Greek or Roman game, but the great expert of these games, Dr. Ulrich Schadler, discards those theories. The first volume of the Alquerque-12 game unravels France and Spain. The second volume deals with the remaining countries of the world."

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."

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 is the outcome of a close study of the Ricote Valley and its famous Sufi Ibn Sab'in. Its purpose is to disclose more of the historical and comparative data. Arab Spaniards have created a glorious human story that lasted for centuries within the scope of the Mediterranean culture. However, a lot of the history of the Ricote Valley is only written in Spanish and still not in English. Andalusian scientists moved from the region of Murcia to the heart of the Islamic world. Their move had quite a deep effect. Among these scientists was the great Sufi philosopher, Muhammad Ibn-'Abdul-Haq known as Ibn- Sab'in (d. 669 H. = 1270 AD), who came from the Ricote Valley. He is the originator of the deep philosophical approach in dealing with highly humanistic Sufi thought, and the author of the magnificent treatise Al-Kalam 'ala Al-Masa'il Al-Siqqilliyya, in which he answered the philosophical questions that Frederick II, the Emperor of Sicily, sent to Muslim scientists in the Mashreq and the Maghreb.

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.