Checkers can appear as an easy board game to play but it certainly has it's strategies and rules. Read through our Checker game rules and instructions. Learn to play checkers. At the Rules of Checkers website we tell you how to set up and play the game, a bit of history, and some essential strategy.

The game is started in the position shown below on a checkers board consisting of 64 squares in an 8x8 grid.

Checkers Rules

Checkers is a classic board game, dating back to around 3000 BC. It is very simple, but a lot of fun! Checkers is known as Draughts in England and there are multiple variations of it all around the world. The game is played on an 8x8 chequered board, essentially a chess board. Each player starts with 12 pieces, placed on the dark squares of the board closest to them. The objective of the game is to capture all the opponent's pieces by jumping over them.

Gameplay

Pieces can only move diagonally on the dark squares, the light squares of the board are never used. A normal move is moving a piece diagonally forward one square. The initial pieces can only move forward diagonally, not backwards. You cannot move onto a square that is occupied by another piece. However, if an opponent piece is on the square diagonally in front of you and the square behind it is empty then you can (and must!) jump over it diagonally, thereby capturing it. If you land on a square where you can capture another opponent piece you must jump over that piece as well, immediately. One turn can capture many pieces. It is required to jump over pieces whenever you can.

If a piece reaches the end row of the board, on the opponent's side, it becomes a King. Kings can move diagonally forwards and backwards, making them more powerful in jumping over opponent pieces. However, if you jump over a piece to become a King you can not jump backwards over another piece in the same move, you have to wait until the next turn to start moving backwards.

Jumping over opponents is required. However, if you have two possible moves, where one jumps over one opponent and the other jumps over two or more opponents you are not required to take the jump with the most opponents captured, you are just required to take any jump move.

Winning

The game can end in four different ways:

Game Pigeon Checkers Rules How To Play

1. If a player has lost all his pieces he loses.
2. If a player can't move at all, all his pieces are blocked, he loses.
3. The exact same board state has come up three times without any men captured in between. The game ends in a draw. This is to avoid situation with two pieces left just moving around never being able to capture each other.
4. There have been 100 moves (50 for each player) with no piece captured. The game ends in a draw.

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Rules

There are several alternative sets of rules by which to play checkers, theones used in this game are based on the rules for American checkersand British draughts.

Game Pigeon Checkers Rules Card Game

1. Object
   The object of the game is to take all your opponent's pieces or place himin a position where he or she can no longer make any moves.
2. Turns
   Players shall take turns at starting the game.The visitor shall start the first game.
3. Obligation to move
   A player has to move, a player who can no longer move loses.
4. Moving pieces
   All pieces, men and kings, can move only diagonally.Pieces can only move to adjacent unoccupied black squaresexcept when making a jump (see below).Men may only move and jump forwards while kings may move and jump forwardsas well as backwards.
5. Obligation to jump
   If one player's piece has the opposing player's piece as a diagonal neighborand the square behind the opposing player's piece is unoccupied the playercan make a jump and remove his opponent's piece from the board.If a player can make a jump such player has an obligation to make a jump.If after making a jump another jump is possible the player must jump again(with the exception of pieces that have just been crowned).
6. Crowning
   Upon reaching the last row on the far side of the checkers board,the so-called king row, a piece is crowned and becomes a king.Being crowned ends the move,a crowned piece may not continue with a jump even if possible.
7. Referee
   The referee will step in to determine the winner, if during 20 moves(10 by each player), only kings have changed position(i.e. no man has moved forward and no piece has been removed from the board),and there appear to be repeating movements. In such cases the referee willdetermine the winner according to who holds the strongest position.Kings being worth more and men closer to the king rowbeing worth more than those further away. In the event that both partiesare of equal strength the referee shall call a draw.
8. Nasty rules
   There are several rules which will not be enforced during this game:
   • A piece once touched has to be moved.
   • If you do not make a jump when one is possible you lose your moved piece.
   • A warning is issued after 5 minutes of inactivity if you do not make amove within the next minute you lose the game.
9. Distractions
   It is prohibited to annoy or distract your opponent. This includes, but is not limited to, making signs or sounds, pointing or hovering over theboard with your hands or other body parts, needlessly delaying your moves,blowing smoke in your opponent's face or appearing at the table dressedin a provocative manner.

Alternative version of checkers include such things as, men beingable to take pieces backwards, men not being kinged if they have to jumpon after reaching the king row and so called flying kings who can move anynumber of squares diagonally. None of these rules are implemented in thisversion of the game.

Tips

As the computer thinks ahead by several moves, it will be ruthless andunforgiving of any mistakes you might make. However the computer'spredictive advantage is less in later stages of the game even though itthen thinks ahead a bit further.Although the game is relatively difficult it can be won by normal human beings.

Game Pigeon Checkers King Rules

Alternative Languages

Official Rules Of Checkers

The script permits the use of other languages, by using a separate languagefiles. If you are interested in providing a translation into your language,contact me (see e-mail below). A number of sentences need to be translated(see: Supported Languages) as well as the documentyou are now reading.

Checkers Rules For King

Read about the making of Browser War Checkers.
Enjoy playing the checkers game!

Game Pigeon Checkers Rules Game

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