Overview

Challenge your mind with Checkers, a classic board game of strategy. Move your pieces wisely and capture your opponent's to win.

board

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Board

Checkers is a strategy game for 2 players and is played on a checkered board with the pieces placed on the dark squares. The game is played on an 8x8 board with 12 pieces per player in the "English Draughts" variant, and on a 10x10 board with 20 pieces per player in the "International Draughts" variant.

Basic Movement

Moves are performed by moving a piece diagonally forward to an adjacent unoccupied square. Pieces must move forward and cannot move backwards unless they have been promoted to a "king". Since pieces are always moved diagonally, the game is played exclusively on the dark squares of the board.

Captures

Captures are performed by jumping an opponent's piece diagonally to an empty square beyond the piece. When presented with the ability to capture an opponent's piece, it is mandatory to do so. Multiple enemy pieces can be captured in a single turn as long as the captures are made by a single piece.

Promotion

When a piece reaches the row furthest opposite its starting side, it becomes a king. Kings have additional powers, depending on the variant of checkers being played, including the ability to move backwards.

Object of the Game

The object of the game is to capture all of your opponent's pieces. The game ends in a loss for the player that has had all their pieces captured or cannot make a move due to their pieces being blocked.

24H Timer

When playing with the 24-hour time control, players have 24 hours to make each move. The timer starts over at 24 hours at the beginning of each turn, and the game is forfeited if a player allows their timer to run out.

Live Timers

When playing each of the following three time controls, players are given a bank of time to be used for the entire game. After each move is made, a smaller amount of time called an "increment" is added back to their clock.

For example, in the "5M + 3S" time control, each player has 5 minutes for the entire game. The timer starts running as soon as the player's turn starts and stops when that player makes their move. The increment, represented by the second number (3 seconds in this example), is added back onto the player's clock as soon as that player makes a move.

2M + 1S

Each player has 2 minutes with which to play the entire game, with 1 second added to their clock at the end of each turn.

5M + 3S

Each player has 5 minutes with which to play the entire game, with 3 seconds added to their clock at the end of each turn.

15M + 0S

Each player has 15 minutes with which to play the entire game, with no time added to their clock at the end of each turn.

English Draughts

The "English" variant of checkers is played on an 8x8 board with 12 pieces per player. The player playing with the red pieces moves first.

Pawns, or "men", can only move and capture forward diagonally. Kings can move and capture diagonally in any direction. Both types of pieces can only move one square diagonally, and can only jump to the square immediately beyond the piece that they are jumping.

International Draughts

The "International" variant of checkers is played on a 10x10 board with 20 pieces per player. The player playing with the red pieces moves first.

Pawns ("men") can only move forward diagonally but can capture both forwards and backwards diagonally.

Kings (called "flying kings" in the international variant) can move in any direction diagonally as far as one likes as long as the path is not blocked by an opponent's piece.

Kings in the international variant also have the ability to jump to any free square beyond an enemy piece when making a capture.

In the international variant, in addition to captures being mandatory when presented, when the opportunity for multiple captures arises, the path of captures that results in the maximum amount of captured pieces must be taken.

Checkers

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