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Checkers

Your move.

You play red. Red goes first, and a jump has to be taken.

Opponent

The rules, start to finish

American checkers, as it is played at tournaments and on front porches.

A red piece next to a white piece, with a chalk arrow showing the red piece jumping over it to the empty square behind.
A jump. Red hops the white piece and takes it.
Two red pieces stacked on one square, beside a single red piece.
A king is two pieces, one on top of the other.

  1. Red goes first. After that the two sides take turns, one move each.

  2. A piece moves one square, diagonally, forward. Only the dark squares are used, and the square has to be empty.

  3. You capture by jumping. If an enemy piece is next to yours and the square right behind it is empty, you hop over and the piece comes off the board.

  4. A jump is not optional. If you can jump, you must. If the same piece can jump again from where it lands, it keeps going. With more than one jump to pick from, the choice is yours.

  5. Reach the far row and you get a king. Your opponent sets one of your captured pieces on top, and the move ends there.

  6. A king still goes one square at a time, but it can move and jump backward as well as forward.

  7. You win when the other side cannot move, either because every piece is gone or because the ones left are blocked. Here a game is a draw after forty moves each without a capture or a move by a single piece, or when the same position comes up three times.

How games are won

Leave your back row at home. Nobody can be crowned on a square you are still standing on, so the longer those four stay put, the longer your opponent goes without a king.

Take the middle. A piece on the edge has half the moves of a piece in the centre, and it can only ever help on one side of the board.

Move in pairs. A piece with a friend directly behind it cannot be jumped from the front. Lone pieces out ahead are the ones that get picked off.

Trade when you are ahead. Three against two is a far easier win than nine against eight. Every even exchange makes a one-piece lead count for more.

Read the jump you are offered. Because jumps are forced, a piece left in your way is often bait: take it, and you land exactly where a double jump is waiting.

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Red for the games you won, white for the ones you lost. Your record is kept in this browser and nowhere else.

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