Checkers Rules
Here's the whole game in one breath: move your pieces diagonally toward the other side, jump anything you can (jumping is required), crown a king on the far row, and take every enemy piece or trap them so they can't move. The table below covers the rest. Some rulebooks call this game American checkers; in the UK it's English draughts. Same rules either way.
Once you've read up, play 2 player checkers free. The game enforces every rule on this page, so nobody has to referee.
Quick facts
| Board | 8×8, and only the 32 dark squares are used |
|---|---|
| Pieces per player | 12, so 24 on the board at the start |
| Starting setup | Each player fills the dark squares of the three rows closest to them |
| Who moves first | Black, then turns alternate |
| How pieces move | One square, diagonally forward, onto an empty dark square |
| Can pieces move backward? | Regular pieces, no. Kings, yes |
| Is jumping required? | Yes. If a capture is available, you must take one |
| Becoming a king | Land a piece on the far row and it's crowned |
| How you win | Capture all enemy pieces, or leave your opponent with no legal move |
| How a game draws | The same position repeats three times, or 40 straight moves pass for each player with no capture and no regular piece moving |
Setting up
Turn the board so each player has a dark square in the bottom-left corner. Each side places 12 pieces on the dark squares of their three nearest rows, leaving the two middle rows empty. Tournament sets use green-and-buff boards with red and white pieces, and the sides are still called Black and White. Any board works at home, though. Black takes the first move.
Moving
- A regular piece (a "man") slides one square diagonally forward onto an empty dark square.
- Forward only. No sideways moves, no backing up. Only kings move backward.
- You must move on your turn. There's no passing in checkers.
Jumping
- You capture by jumping: hop diagonally over an enemy piece sitting next to yours, landing on the empty square just beyond it. The jumped piece comes off the board.
- Jumping is mandatory. If any of your pieces can jump, you have to jump. You can't play a quiet move instead.
- If your piece lands where another jump is possible, it keeps going. Double and triple jumps happen in a single turn, and you must finish the chain.
- When two or more capture routes are open, you pick which one to play. There's no rule forcing the route that takes the most pieces; that rule belongs to other variants, not this game.
- Men jump forward only, same as they move.
More detail, including the backwards-jump question, lives in our checkers jumping rules guide.
Kings
- A man that reaches the far row (your opponent's back row) is crowned. Stack a second checker on top to mark it.
- A king moves and captures one square diagonally in any direction, forward or backward. It doesn't slide across the board; long-range "flying kings" belong to international checkers.
- If a man reaches the back row by jumping, its turn ends right there. It can't crown and keep capturing in the same move.
- Kings can be jumped and captured like any other piece.
For crowning, king movement, and the myths people argue about, see kings in checkers.
Winning and draws
You win when your opponent has nothing left: either every enemy piece is captured, or it's their turn and they have no legal move. That second one trips up new players: blocking works just as well as capturing.
A game is a draw in two cases:
- Repetition: the exact same position, with the same player to move, shows up for the third time.
- No progress: 40 moves in a row from each player pass with no piece captured and no man moved. That only happens when both sides are shuffling kings and nobody is getting anywhere, so the game is called.
House rules vs the official rules
Checkers gets taught across kitchen tables, so plenty of house rules circulate. Three that come up constantly:
- "Huffing." Maybe your grandparents played this: miss a forced jump and the piece that should have jumped gets taken off the board. It's a real historical rule, but the official game dropped it. The jump is simply forced, and you play it.
- "You have to take the longest jump." Not here. That's the majority-capture rule from international checkers. In this game, any available jump satisfies the requirement.
- "A king can move as far as it wants." Same story: flying kings are an international rule. In standard checkers a king goes one square at a time.
If a move looks legal to you and the game on this site won't allow it, the game is right. It plays the official rule set with no house rules mixed in.
Learning the game?
If this page is your first look at checkers, the rules make more sense in motion. Our how to play checkers walkthrough takes you through a first game move by move.
Play checkers free →Rules for other checkers variants
These rules cover standard checkers, the version most Americans grew up with. Russian, Spanish, Brazilian, and eight other variants each change something: flying kings, backwards captures, bigger boards. Checkers Online hosts all eleven, each playable with its own rules explained, and it's where we'd point you for anything beyond the 8×8 game. The one variant you can play right here is International Checkers on the 10×10 board.