Checkers (Draughts)

Rules and how to play (American Checkers)

The board is 8×8, with 64 squares that alternate between light and dark. Pieces are placed and moved only on the dark squares. The board is set so that each player has a dark square in the near left corner. At the start, each player places 12 pieces on the dark squares of the 3 rows nearest to them.^[1]

In American Checkers, the side with the darker pieces moves first. The World Checkers/Draughts Federation (WCDF), which sets the rules for tournaments, uses red and white pieces, with Red moving first. On this page, Black moves first and White second. Players take turns, moving one of their own pieces each turn.^[1]

All pieces start as men. A man moves 1 square diagonally forward to an adjacent empty square. It cannot move backward.^[1]

If an opponent’s piece is on an adjacent square diagonally in front of your man and the square just beyond it is empty, your man jumps over that piece to the empty square and captures the piece it jumped. A man cannot capture backward. If, from the square where it landed, it can jump another of your opponent’s pieces, the same piece keeps jumping and capturing until it can jump no more. This is called a multi-jump, and it counts as 1 move no matter how many pieces are captured. Captured pieces are removed from the board after the move is finished.^[1]

If you can capture, you must. If there are several ways to capture, you may choose any of them; you do not have to choose the one that captures more. However, once you choose a piece, you cannot stop partway while it can still jump. The same piece cannot be jumped twice.^[1]

When a man reaches the opponent’s back row (the far edge), it becomes a king, and the move ends. A king is shown by stacking another piece of the same color on top. A king moves 1 square to any of the 4 diagonally adjacent squares and can also capture backward. When a man reaches the back row by capturing and becomes a king, the move also ends there. Even if the king could jump again from its new square, it does not jump on that move.^[1]

A player who has no piece that can move on their turn loses. This applies both when all of their pieces have been captured and when pieces remain but are all blocked. A player who resigns also loses.^[1]

The game is a draw when the same position occurs 3 times, and when neither player has advanced a man and no piece has been captured for 40 moves each. Under the WCDF rules, a player claims these draws from the referee, who grants them; this page declares them automatically. A position counts as the same only if the same player is to move. The game is also a draw when both players agree, and on this page you can offer a draw along with a move (see the “Controls on this page” section for how).^[1]

International Draughts (10×10) rules

International Draughts is a game played on a 10×10 board, with official rules set by the FMJD (World Draughts Federation). Each player places 20 pieces on the dark squares of the 4 rows nearest to them, and White moves first. Several rules are the same as in American Checkers: a man moves 1 square diagonally forward, you must capture whenever you can, multi-jumps are allowed, a man becomes a king on the opponent’s back row, and the game is won and lost in the same way. The game differs in 4 ways.^[2]

• Men can capture both forward and backward. They move only forward.
• A king can move any number of squares diagonally as long as the squares are empty. When capturing, it can jump an opponent’s piece farther along the same diagonal if only empty squares lie between them, and it can stop on any of the empty squares that continue beyond that piece.
• If there are several ways to capture, you must choose the move that captures the most pieces (the maximum capture rule). Kings and men each count as 1, and capturing with a king or capturing a king has no priority. If the numbers are the same, you may choose any of them.
• If a man passes through the opponent’s back row during a multi-jump but does not end its move there, it remains a man. It becomes a king only when it ends its move on the back row.

During a multi-jump, captured pieces stay on the board until the move is finished, and the same piece cannot be jumped twice. Empty squares may be passed through any number of times. Captured pieces are removed together after the move is finished.^[2]

The game is a draw when the same position occurs 3 times with the same player to move; when, for 25 moves each, only kings have moved, with no man moved and no piece captured; or when the game is not decided within the set number of moves in the endings below. This page declares all of these draws automatically.^[2]

• A lone king against 3 kings, 2 kings and 1 man, or 1 king and 2 men: up to 16 moves each from that position. Capturing a piece along the way does not extend the 16-move limit.
• A lone king against 2 kings, 1 king and 1 man, or 1 king: up to 5 moves each from that position.

If a side leaves the opponent with no moves or captures all of the opponent’s pieces on the last move within the limit, that side wins. The 3-against-1 rule also includes a sentence saying that the limit is 5 moves each when the lone king is on the longest diagonal (the main diagonal, a1–j10), but it does not state the conditions clearly. On this page, when the lone king is on the main diagonal and the opponent has no pieces on the main diagonal, the game becomes a draw after 5 moves each from that position. Also, when a 3-against-1 ending becomes 2-against-1, 5 moves each are counted from that point. In both cases, the limit never goes beyond the 16-move limit that started earlier.^[2]

Controls on this page

In the panel to the right of the board (below it on narrow screens), first choose the rules (American Checkers or International Draughts), then choose how to play. With the Easy, Medium, and Hard buttons under “Play vs computer”, you play first (Black in American Checkers, White in International Draughts). To play second, press “Play second · Medium”. With “2 players on this device”, 2 players take turns as the first and second player on one device.

Press “Play a friend (send a link)” to create a room and show a link. Send that link to your opponent. When they open it and press “Join”, the game starts. The host plays first and the player who joins plays second, and the rules are the ones chosen before the room was created. After the game, press “Rematch (swap sides)” to start the next game. If your opponent stays disconnected for 2 minutes, you can press “Continue vs computer” to keep playing against the computer.

On the 3D board, press one of your pieces that you want to move. The piece lifts slightly, a gold ring appears on it, and green dots appear on the squares it can move to. Press a square with a green dot to move the piece. Whether you use a mouse or touch, each step is a single press. Pressing another piece selects that piece instead, and pressing the selected piece again deselects it. However, if the selected piece has a capture that goes around and returns to its starting square, pressing it again plays that capture. In that case, press outside the board to deselect it.

When a capture is available, a gold ring appears at the base of each piece that can capture, and the turn status adds “You must capture”. If you press a piece that cannot capture, “When you can capture, you must capture” appears. For a multi-jump, press the squares to stop on in order. As soon as only one route remains, the rest of the route is played automatically. Even if you first press the final square (marked with a green ring), the move is played as long as there is only one route. To cancel a capture you have partly entered, press “Deselect” below the board.

Drag the board to rotate the view, and use the mouse wheel or 2 fingers to zoom in and out. Use the “Angled” and “Top-down” buttons at the top right of the board to switch views. When you choose to play second against the computer, or when you are the second player in a game with a friend, the board is rotated so that your pieces are on the near side. The last move is shown by an orange line along its path and a small red ring on each square where a captured piece was.

You can also play from the “Button controls” panel to the right of the board (below it on narrow screens). It is a table laid out like the 3D board. Press a piece, then the squares to stop on. With a keyboard, move between squares with the arrow keys and press with the Enter key. Below the table, “Legal moves” lists every move you can make (for example, c3-d4, or c3×e5 for a capture), and pressing one plays that move. The panel also shows the number of pieces left (men and kings), the number of moves left before an automatic draw, and the last move.

Squares are named from the first player’s side, with a1 at the bottom left. Columns are lettered a, b, c… from the left, and rows are numbered 1, 2, 3… from the near side. These match the letters and numbers on the frame of the 3D board. Tournament game records number the dark squares 1–32 (1–50 in International Draughts), but this page does not use these numbers.^[1][2]

To offer a draw, press “Offer a draw with your next move” in the “Button controls” panel, then make your move. The offer reaches your opponent together with that move, and on their turn, “Accept draw” appears below the board and in the panel. If they accept, the game is a draw. If they make a normal move instead, the offer is declined. After an offer is declined, the same side cannot offer again until either player’s man moves or a piece is captured. An offer cannot be attached even to a move that itself moves a man or captures, so you can offer again only after a move without an offer has been played. In games against the computer, the computer also accepts offers and makes its own.

In games against the computer and with “2 players on this device”, you can take back moves with “Undo move”. Against the computer, it takes back the computer’s move and yours together and returns to your turn. A draw offer attached to a move is canceled along with that move. “Play again” starts a new game with the same rules, and “Resign” concedes and ends the game. Press “Change mode” to return to the screen for choosing the rules and how to play.

Strategy tips

• Because capturing is mandatory, you can force your opponent’s next move. Let your opponent capture one of your pieces, and look for a position where, on your next move, you can recapture 2 or more pieces in a row starting from the square where the capturing piece stopped. Before moving a piece diagonally in front of an opponent’s piece, first check whether you can recapture after it is taken.
• Keep the pieces on your own back row in place for as long as possible. An opponent’s man cannot become a king unless it enters an empty square on that row, so while your pieces remain there, it is harder for your opponent to make a king.
• Pieces on the center squares of the board have more squares to move to and can also block the paths of your opponent’s pieces. Pieces on the left and right edges of the board cannot be captured, because there is no square to land on beyond them, but they have only one square to move to.
• When you are ahead in pieces, keep trading one for one to reduce the number of pieces. The fewer pieces there are, the more a difference of one matters, and the easier it is to win.
• In International Draughts, only the move that captures the most is allowed, so you can work out in advance which route your opponent will take to capture a piece you offer. Look for a position where you can recapture several pieces in a row from the square where your opponent’s piece stops after capturing.

Origin and history of Checkers (Draughts)

Checkers is the American name for the game. In the UK, the same game is called Draughts, and in France it is called jeu de dames. An English etymology dictionary dates the use of the word “checkers” to 1712 and “draughts” to around 1400. Japanese dictionaries list the game played on an 8×8 board as Checkers, and Digital Daijisen also gives another name, seiyo-go (西洋碁, “Western go”). The Japan Checkers and Draughts Association uses separate names: Checkers for the American and British rules played on an 8×8 board, Draughts 64 for the Brazilian and Russian versions played on an 8×8 board, and Draughts 100 (International Draughts) for the international rules played on a 10×10 board.^[4][8][9]

The game regarded as the ancestor of Checkers is Alquerque, in which each player moves 12 pieces on a 5×5 grid of points and captures by jumping over the opponent’s pieces. It appears under the name quirkat in the 10th-century Arabic book “Kitab al-Aghani” [Book of Songs], but the book does not describe how to play. The rules appear in the “Libro de los juegos” [Book of Games] of Alfonso X, King of Castile, which is said to have been completed in 1283 (some sources say it was written between 1251 and 1282).^[5][6][10]

The theory that Checkers began when Alquerque was moved onto a chessboard was first put forward in the late 19th century by the Catalan scholar Josep Brunet y Bellet and was taken up by the British historian H. J. R. Murray. In his 1952 book, Murray concluded that the game arose in the 12th century, probably in southern France. K. W. Kruijswijk of the Netherlands examined this southern France theory in depth in 1966, but the location is now disputed. The French researcher Thierry Depaulis presents the view that Spain is more likely, based on links with the Alquerque of the “Libro de los juegos” and with andarraya, a Spanish game recorded in 1429. James Masters of the UK holds that the move to the chessboard took place before 1426, probably in England.^[5][6]

Japanese encyclopedias often explain that the game had an original form in ancient Egypt. Masters, on the other hand, regards the Alquerque-like board carved into a roof stone of a temple at Qurna in Egypt as graffiti from the much later Arab period.^[6][9]

The oldest record of the name dames is Eloi d’Armeval’s “Livre de deablerie” [Book of Devilry], printed in Paris in 1508. The name also appears in the list of games in Rabelais’s “Gargantua” (1534). The first book devoted to this game alone is said to have been published in Valencia, Spain, in 1547.^[5][6]

The rule that you must capture whenever you can is said to have arisen in France around 1535, and the new game played with this rule was called “jeu forcé”. Pierre Mallet’s book of 1668 was the first to describe the rules in detail, and the rules of today’s American Checkers can be recognized in the game it describes. The first book written in English was by William Payne, a mathematician in London, in 1756. The game then spread to the United States, where it came to be called Checkers.^[5][6]

The game played today under the international rules on a 10×10 board was called the “Polish” game (à la polonoise) in France. In 1787, Manoury wrote that it was devised during the Régence (1715–1723) by a foreigner who was called “the Pole”. However, there are older records as well, such as a 100-square board dated 1696 in a museum in Hoorn in the Netherlands, and the phrase “damer à la polonoise” in a French–Dutch dictionary of 1710.^[5]

In September 1947, the 4 federations of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland founded the FMJD (World Draughts Federation) in Paris. The FMJD promotes the 10×10 international rules and sets their official rules. For American Checkers, the World Checkers/Draughts Federation (WCDF), a section of the FMJD, holds tournaments and sets the rules.^[1][2][3][5]

Checkers has often been used in computer research. In the 1950s, Arthur Samuel began research on machine learning using the game. Chinook, a program from the University of Alberta in Canada, narrowly lost to world champion Marion Tinsley in 1992, and in the 1994 rematch Tinsley withdrew partway through because of illness. In 2007, Jonathan Schaeffer and colleagues showed by computer calculation that American Checkers ends in a draw from the starting position if both players play perfectly. American Checkers has about 500 quintillion (5 × 10²⁰) positions.^[7]

Sources

1. World Checkers/Draughts Federation (WCDF), “WCDF Checker - Draughts - English Rules” (2025 edition; on the North Carolina Checkers Association website) (opens in a new tab)
2. FMJD (World Draughts Federation), “Annex 1 – Official FMJD rules for international draughts” (FMJD Annexes, 2024) (opens in a new tab)
3. FMJD (World Draughts Federation), “FMJD - World Draughts Federation” (about the federation) (opens in a new tab)
4. Japan Checkers and Draughts Association, “種類” [Types] (in Japanese) (opens in a new tab)
5. Thierry Depaulis, “L’Histoire du jeu (Drôle de dames)” [The history of the game] (Tangente-Jeux, 2003; on the French Draughts Federation website; in French) (opens in a new tab)
6. James Masters, “Draughts, Checkers - Online Guide” (The Online Guide to Traditional Games) (opens in a new tab)
7. Jonathan Schaeffer et al., “Checkers Is Solved” (Science, vol. 317, no. 5844, 2007) (opens in a new tab)
8. Online Etymology Dictionary, “checkers” and “draughts” (opens in a new tab)
9. Kotobank, “チェッカー” [Checkers] (entries from Nihon Daihyakka Zensho (Nipponica), Sekai Daihyakka Jiten (revised edition), Digital Daijisen, and others; in Japanese) (opens in a new tab)
10. Wikipedia (English), “Checkers” (opens in a new tab)

Frequently asked questions

Are Checkers and Draughts different games?

No. They’re the names used in different countries for the same game. The game played with 12 pieces each on an 8×8 board is called Checkers in the US and Draughts in the UK. The game played with 20 pieces each on a 10×10 board is called International Draughts. It differs from American Checkers in several ways, such as men being able to capture backward, kings moving any distance, and having to choose the move that captures the most. This page lets you play both, with the 8×8 game as “American Checkers” and the 10×10 game as “International Draughts”.

If I can capture a piece, do I have to?

Yes. In both American Checkers and International Draughts, when a capture is available, you can only make a capturing move. On this page, a gold ring appears at the base of each piece that can capture, and the turn status shows “You must capture”. When there are several ways to capture, American Checkers lets you choose any of them, while International Draughts requires the move that captures the most. Some Japanese encyclopedias say that American Checkers also requires choosing the capture that takes more, but this page follows the WCDF rules and lets you choose any capture.

What can a king do?

A man becomes a king when it reaches the opponent’s back row, and on this page it’s shown as 2 stacked pieces with a gold ring on top. In American Checkers, a king moves 1 square at a time in any of the 4 diagonal directions and can also capture backward. In International Draughts, a king can move any number of squares diagonally as long as the squares are empty, and it can also capture an opponent’s piece farther along the same diagonal. In American Checkers, when a man reaches the back row with a capture and becomes a king, the move ends there. In International Draughts, if a man passes through the back row during a capture but doesn’t end its move there, it remains a man.

When is the game a draw?

This page declares a draw automatically when the same position (with the same player to move) occurs 3 times, and when 40 moves each in American Checkers, or 25 moves each in International Draughts, are played with no man moved and no piece captured. In International Draughts, it’s also a draw when the game isn’t won within 16 moves each in endings such as 3 kings against 1 king, or within 5 moves each in endings such as 2 kings against 1 king. The number of moves left before a draw is shown in the “Button controls” panel, and it also appears below the board once 5 or fewer moves each remain. Besides these, you can offer a draw along with a move, and if your opponent accepts, the game is a draw.

Is there a winning strategy for Checkers?

In 2007, computer calculation showed that American Checkers ends in a draw if both players keep making the best moves (research by Jonathan Schaeffer and colleagues). This means that neither the first nor the second player loses as long as they keep playing correctly. The computer on this page doesn’t have this solution. On Easy, it chooses 40% of its moves at random and otherwise looks 2 moves ahead. On Medium, it looks 8 moves ahead in American Checkers and 6 moves ahead in International Draughts, and on Hard it spends up to 1.5 seconds searching per move. The computer’s moves are calculated in the browser on your device.

How do I play a friend online?

Choose the rules, then press “Play a friend (send a link)” to create a room and show a link. Send that link to your opponent. When they open it and press “Join”, the game starts. The host plays first and the player who joins plays second. You can also offer draws, just as against the computer. A room is deleted when neither player has been connected for 30 minutes, and also 24 hours after it was created.

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