Checkers
Jump, chain and crown. Captures are compulsory.
About Checkers
This is English draughts, the eight-by-eight game most of the English-speaking world calls checkers. You are Red and move first. Men move one square diagonally forward, and a jump over an adjacent enemy piece into the empty square beyond captures it. If a landing square offers another capture, the jump continues — the entire chain counts as one turn.
Captures are compulsory. When a capture is available anywhere on the board, the interface shows only capture moves, because taking is not optional in this ruleset. Reaching the far row crowns a man as a king, which moves and captures in both directions.
The bot finds the long jump chains, which is exactly the skill most human players lack. The review afterwards shows where a forced sequence was available to you and you missed it.
Because every capture is forced, checkers is a game of tempo rather than of material: the side that runs out of safe moves first usually loses, even with more pieces on the board. Most club-level games are decided by a sacrifice that forces the opponent to jump into a double capture, and that pattern is also what the review is best at pointing out. The daily game gives every player the same opening position and bot behaviour, and practice games start fresh whenever you want another.
- Players
- 2 players (you + 1 bot)
- Type
- Board game
- Price
- Free
- Account
- Not required
Checkers rules
- 1.You are Red and move first. Men move one square diagonally forward.
- 2.If a capture is available anywhere, you must take one — the board shows only capture moves.
- 3.A jump that lands next to another capture keeps going; the whole chain is one turn.
- 4.Reach the far row to be crowned a king, which moves and captures both directions.
- 5.You lose when you have no pieces left or no legal move.
How to win at Checkers
- Hold the back row
- Your two back-row squares stop enemy men from crowning. Every piece you advance out of the back row is a king you are giving your opponent later, so break that row only for a concrete gain.
- Count the chain before you offer a piece
- Because captures are compulsory, offering a piece forces a specific reply — which you can use. Sacrificing one man to force a jump that sets up a double capture in return is the fundamental winning tactic in draughts.
- Advance as a connected block
- Pieces defending each other diagonally cannot be taken profitably. A single man pushed ahead of the formation is a free capture for anyone who is counting.
- Trade when you are ahead
- With an extra piece, every even trade increases your relative advantage. A two-for-two exchange in a five-versus-four position leaves you three against two, which is a much easier win.
Checkers questions
- Are captures compulsory in this version of checkers?
- Yes. This is the English draughts ruleset, so if a capture is available you must take one. The board shows only capture moves in that situation.
- How does a multiple jump work?
- If your piece lands next to another capturable piece, the jump continues from there. The whole chain is a single turn.
- What can a king do?
- A king moves and captures diagonally in both directions, forward and backward.
- How do I lose?
- You lose when you have no pieces left, or when you have pieces but no legal move available.
Today's Checkers challenge
The board above is today's daily: one shared seed, so every player gets the same Checkers and scores compare fairly. Finish it and your result lands on the daily leaderboard alongside the weekly, monthly and all-time boards.