Edgar Aleen Poe on chess vs checkers:
"To calculate is not in itself to analyze. A chess player, for example, does one without effort of the other. I will therefore take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In the latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involve, the chances of such oversights are multiplied and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative, rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished and the mere attention being left comparatively, unemployed, what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen".
Give checkers some love!