Checkers rules
The full rules of American checkers (English draughts), as played on PlayFaceToFace. The game looks simple, but details like forced captures and promotion change how you plan. The boards below are live positions checked against our game.
The board and setup
Checkers uses a standard 8×8 board, and only the dark squares are played on. Each player starts with 12 pieces filling every dark square of the three rows nearest to them. The dark pieces, usually black, move first. On our board they are drawn in blue.
Set the board so each player has a dark square in their bottom-left corner. That keeps the diagonals running the right way. Squares are named the way draughts players name them, files a to h from left to right and ranks 1 to 8 from bottom to top.
How pieces move
Every move is diagonal, along the dark squares. An ordinary piece, a man, moves one square diagonally forward per turn. It can't move backward, sideways or straight ahead. Black's men move down the board and red's move up.
That one restriction shapes the whole strategy. A man that moves forward can never come back, so each step needs thought.
Captures are mandatory
You capture by jumping. When an opponent's piece sits diagonally next to yours and the square right behind it on the same diagonal is empty, you jump over it and it comes off the board. Men jump forward only. Whenever any capture is available, you have to take one, even if a quiet move looks better.
If more than one capture is available, you choose which one to make. You don't have to pick the one that takes the most pieces, but you must finish the whole sequence of jumps along the path you chose.
That is the multi-jump rule. After a jump, if the same piece can jump again, it must, in the same turn. It can change direction between jumps whenever the diagonals allow, and each jumped piece leaves the board as it is taken.
You can never jump your own pieces, never jump two pieces lying next to each other in one leap, and never jump in a straight line across or along the board. Every capture is a diagonal jump.
Kings
A man that reaches the opponent's back row becomes a king and is crowned straight away. For black that is rank 1, the bottom row, and for red it is rank 8 at the top.
A king moves and captures diagonally in all four directions, and it can carry a multi-jump on in any direction. When it isn't capturing, it still moves only one square. It must take a capture when one is available, just like a man.
Kings in American checkers don't fly. In international draughts a king can slide across several empty squares, but here it moves one square at a time unless it is jumping.
How the game ends
You win when your opponent has no pieces left, or when it is their turn and none of their pieces can move.
Under standard rules a game is also drawn when both players agree, when neither side can force a win, when the same position keeps repeating, or after a long run of moves with no capture and no crowning. Our online game has no draw offer, so a game there runs until one side wins.
Illegal moves
- Moving a man backward.
- Moving onto a light square.
- Moving sideways or straight ahead.
- Making a quiet move, or stopping a jump sequence early, when a capture is available.
- Jumping without capturing, or jumping onto a square that is not empty.
- Jumping two pieces at once.
Over a real board, an illegal move is usually taken back and replayed, and some clubs make the player forfeit the turn instead. Online the question never comes up, because our board only accepts legal moves.
Rule variants
The core of checkers is the same everywhere, but the details change from country to country. PlayFaceToFace plays American checkers, also called English draughts. Men move forward only, kings move one square at a time, captures are forced and there are no flying kings.
International, Russian, Brazilian and Turkish draughts all change at least one of those rules. The history of checkers describes each of them. These rules underpin every plan in the game, from a beginner's first trades to deep tactics, and the beginner strategy guide shows how to use them.
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Checkers
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