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>>>I bet you are a pretty good chess player, aren't you? That's not a leading question in any way, or an invitation to be boastful (you wouldn't be), just curious.
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>>Mike, Naomi is very good chess player. And I believe she was/is a Master of Sports in International Checkers (100-square board checkers). Master of Sports is a very significant sports title in Russia.
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>No, I'm really a very bad chess player (never studied, etc.) but I enjoy playing in the parks blitz nevertheless. Almost every time I lose.
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>My father was a good player and he loved to play in parks too. I used to watch him playing in St. Petersburg's suburbs, in our nice parks. In my youth living in Russia I only played checkers in the parks sometimes, but here I almost never saw people playing checkers, so I switched to play chess.

We call that game "draughts" over here. And we "crown" a piece that reaches the other side, not "king" it.

In France they have a similar game, called "Dames" (DAM) which is played on a 10 X 10 board, with 15 pieces, and, I think, one is not forced to take and opponent's piece.