How to play checkers
The rules of checkers as Grandpa's Checkers plays them: standard American checkers, also called English draughts. It takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.
The board and the pieces
- Checkers is played by two people on a board of 8 × 8 squares, light and dark. Only the 32 dark squares are used.
- Each side has 12 pieces, one side red and the other white. They start on the dark squares of the three rows nearest each player, leaving the two middle rows empty.
- The pieces you start with are called men. A man that reaches the far side becomes a king.
Moving
- Red always moves first, then the players take turns. You move one piece each turn.
- A man moves one square diagonally forward, onto an empty dark square. Men never move backwards.
- A king moves one square diagonally in any direction, forwards or backwards.
Jumping (capturing)
- You capture by jumping: if an opponent's piece is diagonally next to yours and the square just beyond it is empty, your piece jumps over it to that square, and the jumped piece is taken off the board.
- Men jump forward only. Kings jump forwards or backwards.
- Jumps are compulsory. If you can capture, you must. You cannot make an ordinary move while a jump is available.
- If, after a jump, the same piece can jump again, it must carry on jumping in the same turn. This is a multiple jump, and it can change direction along the way.
- When there is more than one way to capture, you may choose any of them. You do not have to take the one that captures the most pieces, but whichever you choose, you must finish all of its jumps.
- A piece can be jumped only once in a turn.
Kings
- A man that reaches the row on the far side of the board is crowned and becomes a king. In the game a king is shown with a crown.
- Being crowned ends the turn. A man that becomes a king part-way through a multiple jump stops there, even if the new king could jump again; it can move and jump as a king from the next turn.
Winning
- You win when your opponent cannot move on their turn: either all of their pieces have been captured, or every piece they have left is blocked.
- A player may also resign, which gives the game to the other side.
- When playing someone online, each move has a time limit. Run out of time, or leave the game, and it counts as a loss.
Draws
- Repetition: the game is drawn if the same position, with the same player to move, comes up three times.
- Forty-move rule: the game is drawn if forty moves pass on each side with no capture and no man moved, which happens when only kings are shuffling back and forth.
- Agreement: either player can offer a draw with Offer Draw in the Game menu, and it is a draw if the other accepts. The computer accepts only once the opening is over and it is not ahead.
Tips for beginners
For more, read checkers strategy for beginners.
- Keep your back row. While your men stay on the row nearest you, your opponent cannot reach it to be crowned. Move them last.
- Take the centre. Pieces in the middle of the board have more moves and more say in the game than pieces on the edges.
- Move in groups. A man with friends behind it cannot be jumped, because there is nowhere to land. A lone man is a target.
- Use the forced jump. Because captures are compulsory, you can give up one piece on purpose to pull an opposing piece where you want it, then take two in return.
- Trade when you are ahead. Swapping one for one helps the player with more pieces: three against two is far easier to win than twelve against eleven.
- Make kings. A king is worth much more than a man. Getting the first one often decides the game.
- Turn on Show Legal Moves in the Options menu to see every move you can make, including any jump you have to take.
Checkers or draughts?
Same game, two names. It is called checkers in the United States and Canada, and draughts in Britain and much of the Commonwealth, where this version is known as English draughts. In tournament play the darker pieces, often black, move first. Here they are red.
Other countries play other draughts: international draughts uses a 10 × 10 board and lets men capture backwards and kings move any distance. Those are different games. Grandpa's Checkers plays the American and English one described above.
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