Classic draughts / checkers — jump over your opponent's pieces to capture them. Kings move in any diagonal direction. Play solo vs the computer or with a friend.
♟ Checkers
Capture all your opponent's pieces to win! Forced captures — jump over every piece you can.
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Register Free 🚀About Checkers
Checkers on a standard 8×8 board: pieces move diagonally forward, jump an adjacent enemy piece to capture it, and become kings on reaching the far side. Captures are compulsory, which is the rule that turns a simple game into a tactical one.
Compulsory capture is a weapon
If you can capture, you must. That sounds like a restriction on you, and it is — but it is equally a restriction on your opponent, and that is how strong players use it.
Offering a piece your opponent is forced to take lets you dictate their move. Set up correctly, that forced capture moves their piece somewhere you can jump it, sometimes several times over. Almost every good sequence in checkers begins with a deliberate sacrifice rather than a defence.
Keep your back row at home
The four pieces on your back row are the wall preventing your opponent from crowning kings. Every one you advance opens a door, and a king is worth roughly three ordinary pieces because it moves both directions.
Beginners push their back row forward early because it feels like progress. It is usually the reason they lose ten moves later — not from the exchange itself but from the enemy king it eventually allows.
Trade when you are ahead
If you are one piece up, every even exchange increases your relative advantage: five against four is a much bigger edge than nine against eight. If you are behind, avoid trades and keep the board complicated, because complexity is where a losing side finds chances.
This principle governs the whole middlegame and it is the same one that applies in chess. The corollary is that when you are ahead you should be looking to simplify, not to attack.
Playing the computer
The CPU searches three moves ahead with alpha-beta pruning, weighing material and king count. It will always take a capture that wins material and will never leave a piece hanging for free.
Three moves is enough to punish careless play but short enough that a well-built four-move sacrifice can beat it — a sequence where the first move looks like a blunder is exactly what a shallow search handles worst. That is the most satisfying way to win here.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to capture if I can?
Yes, captures are compulsory. If more than one capture is available you may choose which, and if a jump can continue with the same piece you must keep jumping.
How does a piece become a king?
By reaching the opponent's back row. A king is marked with a star and can move and capture diagonally in both directions, which makes it worth roughly three ordinary pieces.
How do I win?
By capturing all your opponent's pieces, or by leaving them with no legal move. A player who is completely blocked loses even with pieces still on the board.
Is checkers solved like Connect Four?
Yes — English draughts was solved in 2007 after eighteen years of computation, and perfect play from both sides is a draw. The CPU here searches three moves ahead rather than playing perfectly, so it can be beaten.