peer2peergames

Checkers

English draughts, on an eight by eight board with twelve men a side. The rule that catches people out is the compulsory capture: if a jump is available anywhere, you have to take it.

Play Checkers Leaderboard

The rules

  1. The board is eight by eight and only the dark squares are used. Each player begins with twelve men on the three rows nearest them.
  2. A man moves one square diagonally forward, onto an empty square.
  3. A capture is made by jumping an adjacent enemy piece and landing on the empty square directly beyond it. The jumped piece is removed from the board.
  4. A capture is compulsory. If any capture is available to you, you must play a capture rather than an ordinary move.
  5. If the piece you have just jumped with can jump again, it must, and the whole chain counts as one move.
  6. A man that finishes its move on the far row is crowned a king. A king moves and jumps diagonally in any direction, backwards as well as forwards.
  7. A man that reaches the far row in the middle of a jumping chain is crowned there and the move ends.

How a game ends

  1. You lose when you have no pieces left.
  2. You also lose when it is your turn and you have no legal move, even if you still have pieces on the board.
  3. The same position occurring three times is a draw.
  4. Eighty consecutive half-moves without a capture and without a man moving is a draw. That is the forty-move rule, and only kings shuffling can run the counter up: any capture, or any move by an uncrowned man, resets it to zero.
  5. Either player may offer a draw; the game ends level if the other accepts.
  6. A resignation or a missed deadline ends the game against that player.

This is English draughts, the eight by eight game where men capture forwards only. International draughts on a ten by ten board, where men may capture backwards, is a different game and is not what this is.

Checkers terms

A man
An uncrowned piece. It only moves and jumps forwards.
A king
A man that reached the far row and was crowned. It moves and jumps in every diagonal direction.
Crowning
Reaching the far row, which turns a man into a king and ends the move.
A jump
A capture: hopping over an adjacent enemy piece to the empty square beyond, removing it.

Playing it here

  • Against a person or the bot. The bot needs no account and starts at once. To play a person, be rated and keep your games, you need an account: an email address and a password.
  • At your own pace. Every move has a deadline you both see, from one minute to a week. A game can take an evening or it can take a fortnight.
  • Nothing to buy and nothing to win. No stakes, no prizes, no boosts, no undo. The only thing on offer is a place on a leaderboard, and only if you want one.
  • Every game can be checked. Anything decided by chance comes from the game's seed, and the seed is published the moment the game ends, so any finished game can be replayed and verified by anyone. See fair play.