Checkers for beginners: how to play and win

The board has 64 squares and only the 32 dark ones are used. Each side starts with 12 pieces on the dark squares of the three rows at its own end, 4 to a row. That leaves two empty rows in the middle.

Against the computer you always move first, and your pieces start at the bottom of the screen. Online the board turns round for the second seat, so your pieces always start at the bottom and move up the screen. On one screen, Player 1 is at the bottom and moves first. The two numbers above the board count how many pieces each side has left.

A plain piece (a man) moves one square diagonally forward, onto an empty dark square. It can't move backwards, and it can't move straight ahead or sideways, because those squares are light ones. At the start you have 7 possible moves, all from your front row.

To move, tap one of your pieces and then the square it should go to. Before you tap, every piece that has a legal move has a faint ring round it. When a jump is forced, only the pieces that can jump get a ring.

You capture by jumping. If an enemy piece is diagonally next to yours and the square just beyond it is empty, your piece hops over it to that square and the enemy piece comes off the board. A man jumps forwards only, the same way it moves.

If any of your pieces can jump, you must jump. Plain moves aren't allowed that turn, and the board says "Jumps are forced" above it. When more than one jump is open you choose which, and there's no rule that you have to pick the one that takes the most pieces.

After a jump, if the same piece can jump again from where it landed, it has to. You keep going with that piece, one hop per tap, until it can't jump any more, and you can't stop halfway. If the chain splits two ways, you pick the branch.

A man that reaches the far row, the other player's back row, is crowned a king. A king has a ring and a dot in the middle of the piece, so you can tell it apart at a glance.

A king moves one square diagonally in any of the four directions, and jumps the same way: backwards as well as forwards, over a piece right next to it. It doesn't slide along a whole diagonal the way kings do in some other versions. On our board every piece goes one square at a time.

Being crowned ends your turn, even in the middle of a chain. If your new king could jump straight away, it has to wait for your next turn, and by then your opponent may have moved out of reach.

You win when it's your opponent's turn and they have no move. That happens when you've taken all their pieces, and also when they still have pieces but every one of them is blocked. A blocked piece is as good as a captured one.

There's one way to draw. If 80 moves go by in a row, 40 each, with no capture and no man moving, only kings stepping about, the game ends in a draw by itself. Any capture or any move by a man starts that count again from zero. If a player has no move at the moment the count runs out, they lose rather than draw.

Most checkers tactics come from the forced jump. Your opponent has to take a piece you offer, so you can decide where their piece lands.

• Before every move, look at the square you're moving to and ask whether any of their pieces can jump it next turn. If one can, you're offering that piece, so make sure you mean to.
• Set up a two-for-one. Offer one piece so that their forced jump lands their man on a square you can jump. They take one, you take it back, and if your jump lands where a second jump is open, you take two.
• Keep pieces in pairs. A jump needs an empty landing square, so a piece with one of yours on the square diagonally behind it can't be jumped along that diagonal.
• Use the edges. A piece on any edge of the board can't be captured at all, because there's no square beyond it to land on. A man on a side edge has only one forward move, though, so it's slow and easy to block.
• Hold your back row. A man is only crowned by landing on your back row, and it can't land on a square you're standing on. Every man you leave there is one less place for them to make a king, and it's on an edge, so it can't be captured either.
• Trade when you're ahead. Swapping one piece for one turns 12 against 11 into 11 against 10, and each swap after that leaves them with less to fight back with.
• Put a king behind their men. A man can't move or jump backwards, so a king sitting behind an enemy man is safe from that man.

They're the same game. It's called checkers in the US and draughts in the UK, and the version on our board is the one both names usually mean: 8 by 8, 12 pieces each, men that only go forward and kings that move one square.

Other versions change the rules. International draughts is played on a 10 by 10 board with 20 pieces each, and there men can capture backwards and kings can fly along a whole diagonal. Some homes still play an old rule called huffing, where a piece that should have jumped and didn't is taken off. Our board never gets there: it won't let you make a plain move while a jump is open.

Easy plays any legal move at random. Jumps are forced for the computer as well, so even Easy takes a piece when it can, though it picks between jumps at random.

Medium tries each of its moves and scores the board it would leave: 100 for each man, 160 for each king, 2 for every row a man stands from its own back row, 6 for each man still on that back row, and 2 for each move it has more than you. It doesn't look at your reply, so it can walk into a two-for-one. Hard scores the same way but looks 6 moves ahead, its own and yours, and counts a whole multi-jump as one of the 6.

Start on Easy to learn how pieces move and jump, then try Medium and set your traps. Playing a child on one screen? The rings show which pieces can move, so a forced jump is never hidden.

It’s free in your browser, with no sign-up. Play Checkers against the computer, with a friend on the same screen, or send a friend a link and play online. Or tap Quick match to play someone new.

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