How to Play Checkers

By: Thorin Klosowski  | 
checkers
Checkers is a seemingly simple board game that has been around for thousands of years, but it has a complexity that makes it a classic. Daniela Duncan/Getty Images

Checkers has been capturing the minds of board game fans around the globe for thousands of years. It is known as a mind sport of kings and men because of its depth and simplicity. Despite its apparent straightforwardness, the game has been studied and theorized to nearly the same extent as other classics such as chess or backgammon.

Although checkers tournaments and competitions exist, it's a game that can be played anywhere — from back porches to grassy parks to the backseat of a car (though you might need a magnetic travel version in this case). It has the classic of appeal of being easy to learn and difficult to master. You can learn how to play checkers on your own or with another amateur partner once you have the foundations for how the game works.

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Checkers is a two-player game in which each player gets 12 discs of either a light or dark color. A standard U.S. checkers board consists of 64 squares that alternate between light and dark colors, typically black and white or black and red [source: Hasbro]. The board size is the same as in chess, and often the games are packaged together.

To set up a game, each player places his 12 discs on the dark squares closest to him, taking up a total of three rows. Once the board is set up, the players alternate making moves across the board.

The object of checkers, like most games, is to win. You win by capturing all your opponent's pieces — without yours being captured in the process — or by leaving the opponent with no legal moves. We'll look thoroughly at this in the next section.

If you don't have a board or pieces lying around the house, don't worry — computer checkers is as common as computer chess and is easy to find online. On top of being great teaching tools when learning the rules of the game, computerized versions can be excellent practice for newcomers and old hands alike. Computers and checkers also share an interesting connection, which you can read more about in the sidebar on this page.

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Checkers Rules

checkers king
In checkers, a king is created by putting one checker piece on top of another. Andrew Holt/Getty Images

In nearly all modern iterations of checkers, the rules for starting a game are the same: The darker color moves first [source: Hasbro]. Figuring out which player gets which pieces is a different story. There is no set rule here, so you'll have to flip a coin or take turns going first.

Once you've decided who moves first, it's time to figure out how to move. There are two types of moves, but at the beginning of a game, you'll have only one option: to move one space diagonally forward. This is called a non-capturing move. If you aren't able to capture any pieces, you can move any of your pieces one square forward. Each player is allowed to move one piece per move.

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The other type of move is called a capturing move. These are diagonal "hops" that take place when your piece is diagonal from your opponent's piece. Since the object of the game is to capture all your opponent's pieces, this is a vital step. You can jump over your opponent's pieces only if a blank square is open diagonally on the other side of it. You can jump as many of your opponent's pieces in one turn as the board allows. Once you've jumped a piece that piece is removed from the board.

If you're in position to make one of these capturing moves, you have to make it; however, if you have multiple capturing moves available to you, you may choose which one you'd like to pursue.

Eventually, at least one of your pieces should make it to the other side of the board. This means it will be crowned a king by having one of your previously captured pieces placed on top of it. Now you can move this piece diagonally forward or backward to capture pieces or block your opponent.

As we mentioned earlier, the directions, objects and rules are fairly straightforward, but like the best games, checkers has a deep strategy that has kept people playing for centuries. We'll look at some of these strategies in the next section.

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Checkers Strategy

checkerboard
The strongest initial move in checkers is 11-15. Or on this board, moving the dark piece at 6F to 5E. Checkers notation is as follows: On this board with the black pieces at the top, B8 would be position 1, D8 would be 2, A7 would be 5 and so forth. G1 would be 32.
Nikolayev Alexey/Shutterstock

Checkers is far more advanced than people might realize when they first start out. There are numerous strategies and play styles to consider.

When studying checkers strategy, you'll first need to understand checkers notation. Notation is used to mark spots on the board, and it's used in shorthand to record classic games. If you're playing the darker color, the notation starts by numbering off the dark squares across the bottom from right to left and moving up the board in that pattern. So, your first square would be a "1" in the bottom right corner. If you're playing white, the notation starts with "1" at the top left, moving across to the right and then down the board, like reading lines in an English-language book.

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A move is recorded by first listing the origin square and then the landing square. So, the first move of a game might be something like 12-16, which would be taking the dark piece that is farthest left in the third to bottom row and moving it one spot diagonally forward and to the right. Jumps are typically marked with an "x," so taking the same piece from the first example and jumping an opponent piece would result in 12x19.

Blocking in checkers is an important strategy in winning. It's useful both to frustrate the opponent and to delay any plans he starts to lay down. Blocking requires moving your pieces to locations on the board that prevent your opponent from jumping. The trick is in figuring out your opponent's plans — not an easy feat by any means. Checkers is all about planning ahead, though, so it's a useful skill to learn.

As with any strategy, planning your potential moves in advance may be the best way to win a game. If you can predict what your opponent may be up to, you can learn to block or set traps for them. Traps can include things such as exploiting the forced capture rule, in which you sacrifice one of your own pieces to get to more of your opponent's, or a side route strategy, in which you block the chance for your opponent to jump you by hugging the side of the board.

Here are some other tips, courtesy of Hasbro:

  • Play your pieces to the center of the board rather than to the sides. The strongest initial move is 11-15. The weakest is 9-13.
  • Play from your single corner (by your left hand) and attack your opponent's double corner (by her right hand). Keep your double corner (by your right hand) as strong as possible.
  • Always move with a motive.

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History of Checkers

checkers, bottle caps, Dominican Republic
Checkers is played all over the world. Here a game is played with bottle caps in the town of Cabral, in the Dominican Republic. Dallas Stribley/Getty Images

The earliest recognizable version of checkers dates back to an Egyptian game called alquerque, which uses a five-square by five-square board and has similar jumping moves. Archaeologists trace it back all the way to 600 B.C.E. The game has since traveled across the globe in different iterations, from the French version known as fierges to the English version known as draughts [source: International Draughts Federation. It has even made an appearance in Greek literature, mentioned by Homer in the epic "The Odyssey" when some haughty suitors are caught "playing draughts in front of the house." Famous players include Cicero, Napoleon and Edgar Allan Poe.

The size of the board has changed over the course of history but has settled on two different variations: the 100-square (10x10) board used in many European countries and the 64-square (8x8) board used in American checkers. Checkers/draughts is played all over the world but is particularly popular in Russia, France, Brazil and Turkey, with different countries and regions having slightly different rules. For instance, in international draughts you can jump your pieces forward and backward but in American checkers, you can only jump forward (unless the piece is a king).

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On the surface, checkers may appear to be a simple game. It has no diversity in its parts, with just two colors and a seemingly simple premise: Remove your opponent's pieces from the board by jumping over them before he can remove yours. However, it is a game that combines strategy, forethought, mathematics and a bajillion different combinations of moves.

Lots More Information

Related Articles

  • American Checker Federation, The. "The American Checker Federation." Jan. 11, 2010. (March 14, 2010) http://www.usacheckers.com/index.php
  • Cain, Fraser. "The Game of Checkers: Solved." Wired. July 20, 2007. (March 14, 2010) http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/07/the-game-of-che/
  • CBC News. "New computer program never loses at checkers." CBC News. July 20, 2007. (March 16, 2010) http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/07/19/checkerscmap.html
  • Checkers Strategy. "A Checkers Strategy for every Board Situation." 2009. (March 14, 2010) http://www.checkers-strategy.com/
  • Chinook. "Chinook, World Man-Machine Checkers Champion." (March 14, 2010) University of Alberta. http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/index.php
  • Dam, Eric. "International Checker World Records." Eric's International Draughts and Checkers Site. 2010. (March 14, 2010) http://www.ericsdamsite.com/International%20checkers%20world%20records%20(2).htm
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  • Hinnershitz, Jay, Liam Stephens, Ken Lovell. "Online Museum of Checkers History." OMCH. (March 13, 2010).http://www.online-museum-of-checkers-history.com/
  • Homer. "The Odyssey." Translated by George Herbert Palmer. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1884 http://books.google.com/books?id=ezJJAAAAYAAJ
  • International Draughts Federation. "A History of Draughts." (April 29, 2022). https://idf64.org/a-history-of-draughts/
  • Loy, Jim. "The Basic Rules of Checkers." Jim Loy's Checkers Pages. 1999. (March 14, 2010) http://www.jimloy.com/checkers/rules2.htm
  • Nelson, Bryn. "Checkers computer becomes invincible." MSNBC. July 19, 2007. (March 14, 2010) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19839044/
  • Newell, Bob. "The Checker Maven." March 13, 2010. (March 14, 2010) http://www.bobnewell.net/nucleus/checkers.php
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  • Pike, Robert. "Play Winning Checkers." Sterling Publishing Company. 1999. (March 12, 2010)
  • Schaeffer, Jonathan, Norman Treloar, Paul Lu, Robert Lake. "Man Versus Machine." AI Magazine. 1993. (March 14, 2010) http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/1040/958
  • Schaeffer, Jonathan and Robert Lake. "Solving the Game of Checkers." Games of No Chance, MSRI Publications. Vol 29, 1996. (March 14, 2010)http://www.msri.org/publications/books/Book29/files/schaeffer.pdf

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