Checkers is played on an 8×8 board. Unlike in Chess, only the dark squares are being used to play.

Board and piece color

The most commonly used colors of the board are green and buff with dark squares. The colors of the pieces shall be of color contrast. Most used in tournament play are red for the dark and white for the light pieces. Board numbering and piece order To record a game, the board is dark squares are numbered into 1-32.

The numbering does start with the double corner (1 and 5 for red and 28 and 32 for white) on the right-hand side from each player’s perspective.

Now to prepare the board to play the player with the dark pieces does place them on fields 1 to 12. The player with the light pieces does place them on fields 21-32.

Starting the game

At the start of the game, the player with the dark pieces goes first. Those are most commonly called black and white or red and white.

The moves

There are 4 types of moves: the ordinary move of a man, the ordinary move of a king, the capturing move of a man and the capturing move of a king.

Ordinary Move Of A Man

Capturing move of a man

In checkers, all jumps must be taken. A jump must be made only over an adjacent piece. A piece cannot jump over empty squares. The jumped piece is then captured and removed from the board.

An ordinary move of a man is its transfer diagonally forward left or right from one square to an immediately neighboring vacant square.

Moving onto the king-row

When a man reaches the farthest row forward (known as the “king-row” or “crown-head”) it becomes a king, and this completes the turn of play. This will be the case even if he jumps into the king-row and could jump out of the king-row.

The man can be crowned by either player by placing a man of the same colour on top of it before the next move is made.

Ordinary move of a king

A king can move one squre into any direction diagonally.

Capturing move of a king

A king can jump into any direction diagonally until the jump is exhausted.

Win or Draw a game

A player wins by either capturing all of the other player’s pieces or putting them into a position where they cannot move. A player can also win if the other player resigns or forfeits the game as a result of a violation of the rules. A game is declared a draw when neither player can force a win. A draw can be declared any time both players agree to it. In addition to this in tournament play, there is a 40 move rule without a capture and three times repeat position draw. Those are the most important rules one should know.

For the full set of rules please do have a look at the World Checkers and Draughts Federation.