Checkers / Draughts

👥 2 players 📍 Indoor📍 Anywhere ⚡ Moderate 🧩 Moderate ⏱ 20-60 minutes 🎂 Ages 8+

Quick Pitch

Checkers is a classic two-player strategy game where you move pieces diagonally across a board, capturing your opponent's pieces by jumping over them — and turning them into powerful kings when they reach the far side.

Hook

You start with twelve pieces lined up on your side of the board. Move them forward one diagonal square at a time. When you can jump over an opponent's piece, you capture it — and if another jump is available, you must keep jumping. Get a piece to the far end and it becomes a King, able to move and capture in any diagonal direction. Checkers rewards thinking a few moves ahead: the best players set up chains of forced captures that can clear half the board in a single turn.

Equipment Needed

The Board

International Checkers: 10x10 board with 50 dark squares (25 per side initially) American Checkers: 8x8 board with 32 dark squares (12 per side initially)

Only dark squares are used; play only occurs on dark squares.

Improvising the Board

  1. Drawn/printed board: Draw or print 10x10 grid on paper, marking dark squares
  2. Cardboard: Draw squares on cardboard, color alternately
  3. Cloth: Draw on cloth board for portability
  4. Any checkerboard: Use standard 8x8 or 10x10 checkerboard (many boards convert between versions)

Pieces

  • 20 per player (10x10) or 12 per player (8x8)
  • Two colors/types to distinguish players
  • Two distinguishable pieces per player (regular pieces and kings, usually using height difference or marking)

Options: Coins, buttons, tokens, or carved pieces.

Rules

Piece Movement

Regular Piece:

  • Move diagonally forward (toward opponent's king row) one square
  • Only to empty dark squares
  • Capture opponent piece by jumping over it (see Capturing)

King Piece:

  • Move diagonally in any direction (forward or backward)
  • Multiple squares per move (unlike regular pieces)
  • Capture rules apply with distance

Capturing (Jumping)

Mandatory Capture: If you can capture, you must (no optional moves).

Capture Mechanism:

  1. Jump over an opponent piece (regular: adjacent; king: any distance along diagonal)
  2. Land in an empty square on the far side of the opponent piece
  3. Remove the captured piece from the board
  4. Multiple captures possible in single turn (required if available)

Multiple Jumps: After capturing one piece, if your piece can continue capturing (jumping over other opponent pieces), you must do so. This creates jump chains.

Example:

[ ]X[ ]Y[ ]
X [ ]X[ ]Y
[ ]X[ ]Y[ ]
Your piece at X can jump over opponent at Y, landing beyond it.

Promotion

When a regular piece reaches the far edge of the board (opponent's king row), it immediately promotes to a king. The piece gains new movement abilities and stays on the board (doesn't require capturing to promote).

Game End

Win Conditions:

  1. Capture all opponent pieces: You win
  2. Opponent cannot move: You win (opponent has no legal moves)
  3. Draw: After significant play with no progress (50-move rule in some variants), game may be declared draw

Expert Player

Tips

Opening Principles

  • Control center: Middle squares are valuable; pieces there control more board
  • King-safety: Protect your back row to avoid forced promotions to opponent's advantage
  • Piece density: Keep pieces somewhat distributed to maintain options
  • Opening formations: Studied opening patterns minimize risk

Middle-Game Tactics

  • Piece trades: Trading pieces is beneficial if it advances your position
  • Promotion pursuit: Move toward promotion while defending against opponent's
  • Escape routes: Keep pieces with escape options to avoid unnecessary captures
  • Trap setup: Position pieces to create forced jump sequences favoring you

Endgame Strategy

  • King power: Kings are much more powerful; often determine endgame
  • Zugzwang: Create positions where opponent's only moves worsen their situation
  • Opposition principle: Control key squares to prevent opponent movement
  • Fortress positions: Some endgame positions are holds (neither player can win)

Capture Calculation

  • Forced sequences: Calculate multi-jump sequences carefully
  • Sacrifice understanding: Sometimes sacrificing a piece to improve position is correct
  • Distance: Kings can capture at distance (not adjacent); use this advantage

Variations

American Checkers (8x8 Board)

  • Smaller board: 12 pieces per player instead of 20
  • Faster games: Shorter play time, more constrained
  • Same basic rules: Mechanics are identical, just smaller scale

Turkish Draughts / Dama

Different capture rules and directional restrictions (see separate entry).

Brazilian Draughts

Unique jumping mechanics create different strategic emphasis.

Expert Play Variants

  • Time controls: Tournament play uses chess-style time controls
  • Draw rules: Complex rules govern when draws may be claimed
  • Repetition: Repeating position three times = draw
Learn More — History & Origins

History & Origins

Checkers evolved in southern France around the 12th century, combining rules of Chess with the 8×8 Alquerque board. The game gained popularity across medieval Europe, with regional variations developing—English Checkers on 8×8 boards and International Draughts on 10×10 boards. The standardization and competitive formalization of Checkers occurred primarily in the 19th century, establishing it as one of the world's most popular board games.

Cultural Context

Checkers holds an unusual place in game history: it is one of the few games to have been fully solved by computer. In 2007, a research team at the University of Alberta announced that they had computationally proven every possible position in Checkers — the result is a draw with perfect play from both sides. This makes Checkers the most complex game ever completely solved, requiring years of distributed computing to verify. Knowing this doesn't ruin the game for casual players, any more than knowing that Chess has a theoretically perfect game ruins Chess — the gap between knowing optimal play exists and being able to execute it remains vast.

Checkers has also been central to the history of artificial intelligence. Arthur Samuel's Checkers-playing program, developed at IBM in the 1950s and 1960s, was one of the first programs to demonstrate machine learning, improving its play by analyzing past games. The program's success helped establish that computers could learn from experience rather than just following fixed rules — a foundational insight in AI research. Checkers has been both a testing ground and a milestone for the field.

See Also

Setup (10x10 International)

  1. Set up board with 10x10 grid
  2. Player 1 places 20 pieces on dark squares of rows 1-4
  3. Player 2 places 20 pieces on dark squares of rows 7-10
  4. Rows 5-6 remain empty
  5. Determine who plays first (often by mutual agreement; traditionally black plays first)
Player 2 (King Row):
[ ]■[ ]■[ ]■[ ]■[ ]■
■[ ]■[ ]■[ ]■[ ]■[ ]
[ ]■[ ]■[ ]■[ ]■[ ]■
■[ ]■[ ]■[ ]■[ ]■[ ]
[Empty row 5-6]
[ ]□[ ]□[ ]□[ ]□[ ]□
□[ ]□[ ]□[ ]□[ ]□[ ]
[ ]□[ ]□[ ]□[ ]□[ ]□
□[ ]□[ ]□[ ]□[ ]□[ ]
Player 1 (King Row):

Learning Path

Beginners: Learn movement and capture rules; play casually. Intermediate: Study opening formations; understand piece value. Advanced: Research published games; develop endgame technique.

Despite being computationally solved, checkers remains engaging because knowing optimal play and executing it are different challenges. The game rewards both careful calculation and strategic pattern recognition.