How to Play Checkers: Rules, Jumps and Kings (Free)

To play checkers, each player starts with 12 pieces on the dark squares of an 8 × 8 board. Pieces move one square diagonally forward. You capture by jumping over an opponent's piece to an empty square behind it, and if a capture is available you must take it. Reach the far row and your piece becomes a king, which can also move backwards. You win when your opponent has no pieces or no legal move. Try it against the computer in our free Checkers game.

The board and the pieces

Checkers (called draughts in Britain and much of the Commonwealth) uses the same 8 × 8 board as chess, but only the 32 dark squares matter. Each side gets 12 pieces, called men, placed on the dark squares of the three rows nearest them. The two middle rows start empty.

Turn the board so each player has a dark square in the bottom-left corner. In our game the board is set up for you: you play the pink pieces at the bottom and the computer plays navy at the top.

Who goes first? In tournament checkers the darker side traditionally moves first. In our game pink always starts.

How to play checkers: moving the pieces

1. A man moves one square diagonally forward onto an empty dark square.
2. Men never move backwards, except when they become kings.
3. Pieces always stay on the dark squares, so light squares are never used.

On your turn in our game, click one of your pieces and the squares it can move to light up. Click a square to move.

Capturing (jumping)

You capture by jumping: if an opponent's piece is diagonally next to yours and the square directly beyond it is empty, jump over it and remove it from the board. Men can only jump forwards.

Captures are compulsory

This is the rule beginners most often miss. If you can capture, you must. You can't make a quiet move instead. If more than one capture is possible, you choose which one; you don't have to pick the one that takes the most pieces. Our game shows "you must capture" in the status line and only lets you play capturing moves at that point.

Multiple jumps

After a jump, if your piece can jump again from where it landed, it keeps going in the same turn. A double or triple jump can change direction as long as each jump is forward for a man (kings can jump in any diagonal direction). You must finish the whole sequence; you can't stop halfway. In our game you click the square where the sequence ends, and the piece makes every jump along the way in one go.

Kings

When a man reaches the far row (the opponent's back row), it is crowned and becomes a king. In a real set you stack a captured piece on top; in our game a small gold crown appears on the piece.

• A king moves one square diagonally in any direction, forwards or backwards.
• A king can jump forwards and backwards, and can chain jumps in any direction.
• If a man reaches the back row in the middle of a jump sequence, it is crowned and its turn ends there. It must wait until next turn to jump again as a king.

Kings are worth roughly one and a half to two men in practice because they can retreat and attack from behind.

How a game ends

• Win: you capture all of your opponent's pieces, or they have pieces left but no legal move (they're completely blocked).
• Draw: in our game, if 40 moves each pass with only kings moving and no capture, the game is drawn. This stops endless king chases when neither side can make progress.

American checkers vs international draughts

The game in our app follows English draughts, which is the same thing as American checkers. Other countries play quite different versions:

	American checkers / English draughts	International draughts
Board	8 × 8	10 × 10
Pieces each	12	20
Men capture backwards?	No	Yes
Kings	Move one square	"Flying kings" move any distance along a diagonal
Which capture to take	Any capture	Must take the sequence that captures the most pieces

There are also 8 × 8 versions, such as Brazilian and Russian draughts, that use flying kings and backward captures by men. If you learnt checkers from family in a different country, check which rules you grew up with before you argue about a jump.

Quick practice plan

1. Play on Easy for a few games. It makes mistakes, so you'll see forced captures and crowning happen.
2. Move up to Medium once you win most games, then Hard.
3. Use Undo to take back a move that loses a piece, and look at why.
4. Choose Two players to play a friend on the same device, passing it between turns.

When you know the moves, checkers strategy covers how to actually win: the centre, the back row and forcing trades. If you also play chess, see how chess pieces move for the differences.

Start a game

Open the free Checkers game, pick a level and make your first move. There's nothing to install and no sign-up.