Checkers rules: how to play checkers and draughts

Board, pieces and the first move

Checkers — draughts outside North America — is played on the dark squares of an 8×8 board with twelve pieces a side. Every move is diagonal, every capture is a jump, and capturing is compulsory. That last rule is what turns a children's game into a game that took a research team eighteen years to solve.

• Board: 8×8, using only the 32 dark squares. A dark square goes in each player's left-hand corner.
• Pieces: twelve men each, on the three rows nearest you.
• Black moves first, then turns alternate.

Moving and the compulsory jump

A man moves one square diagonally forward to an empty square. It never moves backwards and never moves straight.

Jumping

If an enemy piece sits diagonally in front of yours and the square directly beyond it is empty, you jump over it and remove it from the board. Two rules make jumping the engine of the game:

• Capturing is compulsory. If a jump is available, you must take it.
• Multiple jumps must be completed. If the jumping piece can jump again from its new square, it must keep going — and the chain may change direction.

If several different jumps are available you may choose any of them. In English draughts you are not required to pick the one that captures the most pieces — a rule that differs in international and Russian draughts.

Crowning and how kings move

A man that reaches the far row is crowned a king — shown as two pieces stacked, or here with a crown. Kings move and capture diagonally in both directions, one square at a time in English draughts.

Kings are worth roughly one and a half men, and a lone king can usually hold off two men in the right position. Getting the first king is the main strategic goal of the middlegame.

Winning, drawing and the variant rules

You win when your opponent cannot move — because every piece has been captured, or because every piece is blocked. There is no checkmate and no stalemate rule: being unable to move is simply a loss.

Draws

• Agreement, which is how most games between strong players end.
• Threefold repetition of the same position.
• Forty moves each with no capture and no man move.

Russian draughts, also on this site

The same board, three changed rules — and a different game:

Flying kings make the endgame far sharper: a single king controls a whole diagonal, and material advantages convert much faster. If you find English endgames slow, try the Russian rules.

The other draughts family

International draughts is played on a 10×10 board with twenty pieces a side, flying kings and the rule that you must take the maximum number of pieces available. It is the tournament game in the Netherlands, France, Eastern Europe and much of Africa, and is considerably deeper than the 8×8 game.

How a game of checkers unfolds

Checkers has three phases, and they are much more distinct than in chess.

1. The opening: the first eight or ten moves

The middle eight squares are empty and both sides push men towards them. Nothing is captured for several moves, and the aim is simply to build a formation where your men defend each other while keeping your back row intact. There is a huge published literature on these moves; you do not need it, but be aware that your opponent may.

2. The middlegame: exchanges and shots

The first capture usually triggers a chain of exchanges, because taking is compulsory. This is where games are decided: a shot — a sacrifice that forces a jump and wins two pieces for one — is the standard winning device, and most players lose their first hundred games to one.

3. The endgame: kings and tempo

With a handful of pieces left, the first player to crown usually wins, and the game becomes an exercise in restricting the enemy king. Endings of two kings against one, or king and man against king, are fully analysed and worth learning.

Rules people get wrong

• "You can take the piece or not, as you like." No — capturing is compulsory in standard rules. The casual version without it is a different, much shallower game.
• "You must take the jump that captures most." Not in English or Russian draughts; only in international 10×10 draughts.
• "Huffing". The old rule where a player who missed a compulsory capture forfeited the piece was abolished in the nineteenth century. Today the move is simply illegal and must be replayed.
• "Kings can fly." Only in Russian, international, Brazilian and similar variants. In English draughts kings move one square at a time.
• "A crowned piece keeps jumping." Only under Russian rules. In English draughts crowning ends the move.
• "Blocked means a draw." No — if you cannot move, you lose.

Numbering the squares

Checkers notation numbers the 32 playable squares from 1 to 32, starting in Black's left-hand corner. A move is written as origin–destination: 11-15. A capture uses a multiplication sign: 22x15.

The standard opening 1.11-15 is the "Old Faithful", and if you go looking for checkers literature you will find every opening catalogued and analysed to a depth that surprises people who think of it as a children's game.

Common questions