Checkers
You are the light pieces and move first, up the board. Choose one of your pieces, then choose where it goes. Captures are allowed but never forced; once a piece has captured, it keeps capturing while it can. A piece that reaches the far row becomes a king, and that ends the move.
The board
The computer has not moved yet.
The computer’s last move is marked on the board: a dashed circle where its piece started, a double frame where it stopped, and × where it took one of your pieces.
Nothing is saved: no scores, no progress, no cookies. Reload and the game starts again.
About this game
How to play
- The board is eight squares by eight, and only the dark squares are used. You have 12 light pieces at the bottom and move first; the computer has 12 dark pieces at the top.
- An ordinary piece moves one square diagonally forward, onto an empty square.
- To capture, jump diagonally over an enemy piece next to yours, onto the empty square behind it. The jumped piece leaves the board. After a capture the same piece keeps capturing, in the same move, while it can.
- Here a capture is allowed but never forced. That is gentler than the official rules, where a capture you can make is a capture you must make.
- A piece that reaches the far row becomes a king. A king moves and captures one square diagonally, backwards as well as forwards. Becoming a king ends the move.
- You win when the computer has no pieces or no moves left. The computer wins the same way.
What the three levels change
- Easy
- The computer plays any legal move at random.
- Medium
- The computer takes the longest capture it has. With no capture, it prefers a move that leaves you nothing to capture.
- Hard
- The computer looks several moves ahead, a little deeper each time, until a short time limit runs out, and then plays the best move it found.
Keyboard and screen readers
- Tab moves between the 32 dark squares. Press Enter or Space on one of your pieces to choose it, then on a square to move it there.
- Each square’s name gives its row, its column and what stands on it.
- The computer’s last move is marked on the board and also written under it, so you can read it again at any time.
An odd fact about this game
Checkers is solved. In 2007 a team led by Jonathan Schaeffer at the University of Alberta published a proof, computed since 1989, that under the standard rules the game always ends in a draw when neither side makes a mistake.
Source: Schaeffer et al., “Checkers Is Solved”, Science, 2007