Checkers
Capture every enemy piece, or leave your opponent with no legal move, and the game is yours.
How to Play Checkers
Checkers is played on the dark squares of a checkered board: pieces step one square diagonally forward, and they capture by jumping an adjacent enemy piece into the empty square beyond. If the same piece can jump again, the chain continues in the same turn β and capturing is not optional, it is forced, which is the rule that decides most games. Reach the far row and a piece is crowned a king. Choose between three rule sets here: American on 8Γ8, where men capture forward only and kings step one square; Russian on 8Γ8, where men also capture backwards and kings fly the whole diagonal; and International on 10Γ10, with flying kings and the majority rule, which obliges you to take the largest capture available. You win by taking everything, or by leaving your opponent stuck.
A Brief History of Checkers
Checkers descends from alquerque, an older capture game recorded in the Libro de los Juegos, commissioned by Alfonso X of Castile in 1283. Around 1100, probably in southern France, players moved it onto a chessboard, keeping the diagonal movement. William Payne wrote the first English book on it in 1756, with a dedication by Samuel Johnson. In 2007 Jonathan Schaeffer’s team at the University of Alberta solved the American game outright: with perfect play, it is a draw.
Benefits of Playing Checkers
Checkers looks simple and punishes carelessness, which makes it an excellent trainer for reading ahead. Because captures are forced, your opponent’s replies are predictable, so you can calculate a whole sequence and see exactly where it lands. It also teaches sacrifice β giving up a piece to win two back is the game’s central idea. Ten bot levels let you set the resistance where that lesson actually lands, and the low ones hang pieces the way a beginner does.
Tips and Principles for Winning at Checkers
Push toward the center, where your pieces have more jumps available and are harder to trap against the rim. Keep your back row intact as long as you comfortably can, since those pieces stop your opponent crowning kings. When you are a piece ahead, trade at every opportunity β each exchange makes your advantage a larger share of what is left. And look for two-for-one shots: because the capture is forced, offering a piece can drag your opponent’s piece exactly where you jump twice.
Checkers and Go: Capture, Sacrifice, and What a Piece Is Worth
Both games run on capture, and both reward players who can tell a valuable piece from a spent one. In checkers you calculate exchanges: this piece for that one, and who is better off afterwards. Go removes stones too, but differently: by taking away their escape routes, and a captured stone counts against its owner at the end. If you like the resemblance, switch the board to the Go-stones skin and learn the rules of Go.
