What is it?
Checkers (draughts) is the classic board game, here on an 8 × 8 board with English rules. Play the computer at three levels, or a friend on the same device.
Who is it for?
Families, children learning a classic strategy game, and players who want a quick game against a computer of the right strength.
How to use it
- Choose vs computer (then Easy, Medium or Hard) or 2 players. Swap sides changes your colour.
- Tap one of your pieces: blue dots show where it can go. Tap a dot to move.
- Jump over an opponent’s piece to capture it; multi-jumps happen in one go.
- Reach the far row to crown a king (shown with a crown), which moves both ways.
- Untick Captures are compulsory (standard rule) for a relaxed family game. New game starts over.
Strategy tips
- Keep your back row filled as long as you can: it stops the other side from crowning kings.
- Control the centre squares; edge pieces are safe but have fewer moves.
- When ahead, trade pieces: fewer pieces makes your extra one count more.
- Easy plays partly at random, Medium looks four moves ahead and Hard six. Keyboard: arrows move, Enter picks a piece and its destination.
Errors and how to fix them
- “You must capture: a jump is available.”: with compulsory captures on, you must take a jump if one exists. Look for the piece that can jump.
- “That piece cannot move.”: it is blocked, or another piece has a capture you must make.
- “Draw: 40 moves each without a capture.”: the game ended as a draw because nobody captured for a long time.
- The game ends when I still have pieces: you lose if you have no legal move, even with pieces left.
- My game, best time or score has gone: it is kept only in this browser on this device. Private windows, clearing site data, or another browser or phone start fresh.
Open the tool: Checkers
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Questions, or an error not listed here?
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