Checkers
Jump, capture, and crown kings against the computer.
How to play Checkers
You play the red discs and move first. Click a piece to see its legal moves, then click a square to move diagonally forward. Captures are mandatory: jump an adjacent enemy into the empty square beyond, and keep jumping if you can. Reach the far row to crown a King, which moves both ways. Capture all the computer’s pieces to win.
How to win at checkers
Checkers rewards patience far more than speed. Because Inkplay enforces mandatory captures, every jump you offer is a jump your opponent must accept, which turns forced captures into your sharpest weapon. The core idea is the two-for-one shot: deliberately give up one piece so that the computer's forced jump lands where a waiting piece of yours can leap straight back over two of its men. Setting these traps, rather than trading pieces at random, is what separates a winning player from a losing one.
Here is the shot in its simplest form. Suppose the computer has a man that could jump one of yours if you stepped forward. Most players flinch away from the square. Look one move deeper instead: step forward anyway, but only when the landing square of the forced jump sits diagonally beside another of your men with an empty square beyond it. The capture you offered becomes bait. The computer must take it, its piece lands exactly where you chose, and your waiting man leaps back over two pieces. You gave one and took two, and against Easy and Medium this single pattern wins game after game. The skill isn't seeing the jump. It's arranging, two moves early, where the enemy piece will be forced to stand.
Control of the center matters, but so does the shape of your wall. Keep your pieces connected in a diagonal phalanx so that any man the opponent jumps can immediately be recaptured. A lone piece pushed too far forward is usually a lost piece.
Tips to win more games
- Hold your back row as long as you can: those anchor squares stop the computer from crowning kings.
- When you are ahead in material, trade pieces off; fewer men on the board magnifies your lead.
- Never move a piece just because it is your turn. Look first for any forced-capture trap you might be walking into.
- Favour the side files early; an edge piece cannot be captured from one direction, making it safer.
- Count the whole jump chain before you take it: a tempting single capture can hand back a double.
Kings and the endgame
Reaching the far row crowns a King, which moves and jumps both forward and backward. One king is worth far more than one man, so racing a runner to the back rank often decides close games. In the endgame, herd the opponent's pieces toward the edges and use the classic first-position idea: with kings, hold the double-corner and push the computer into zugzwang, where every move it can make only worsens its position. Checkers players also talk about having the move, a counting concept close to opposition in chess. With even material, the player whose turn it is may be the one forced to give ground first, and whoever holds the move in a locked position usually wins the key square. You can shift it deliberately: a one-for-one exchange passes the move across the board, so a player losing the squeeze can trade once and turn the tables.
Tinsley, Chinook, and the solved game
Checkers history has one figure no other game can match. Marion Tinsley, a mathematics professor, held the world championship on and off from the 1950s to the 1990s and lost a total of seven games in his forty-five-year career, two of them to the computer program Chinook. He beat Chinook 4-2 in their 1992 match, the first world title contest between a human champion and a machine, then had to withdraw from the 1994 rematch through illness. Chinook's team kept computing, and in 2007 its creator Jonathan Schaeffer published the proof that checkers played perfectly is a draw, at the time the largest game ever solved, after eighteen years of calculation across roughly five hundred billion billion positions. None of that makes the game less playable: neither you nor the Hard computer is carrying that database, so the fight over the board stays a real one.
Draughts around the world
The game here is English draughts, also called American checkers, played on an 8x8 board where ordinary men capture forward only. Elsewhere the game grows: international draughts uses a 10x10 board with flying kings that slide any distance, Brazilian draughts squeezes those same rules onto the 8x8 board, and Turkish draughts moves orthogonally rather than diagonally. Pool checkers, long popular across the American South, lets ordinary men capture backward too. All of them share the same soul: a deceptively simple race that hides real tactical depth.
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Checkers: frequently asked questions
Do I have to capture when I can?
Yes. Like standard American checkers, if a jump is available you must take it, and you must continue a multi-jump chain.
How strong is Hard mode?
Hard uses an alpha-beta search several moves deep, weighing material, kings, and advancement, so it punishes mistakes.
Do I have to capture in checkers?
Yes. Inkplay uses the mandatory-capture rule, so if a jump is available you must take it. When several captures are possible you may choose which one, but you cannot decline a jump to make a quieter move.
Can an ordinary piece capture backwards?
No. A regular man captures only along its forward diagonals. Backward capture is a power reserved for kings, which is one reason reaching the far row to be crowned is so valuable.
What happens when I reach the last row?
Your piece is crowned a King at once and gains the ability to move and jump both forward and backward. If it arrives by a jump, the turn ends there: a freshly crowned king does not keep chaining on the same move.
Who moves first in Checkers?
You do, playing the light pieces. In draughts the side that moves first is under slight pressure in perfect play, so use the initiative to dictate trades rather than drift into the opponent's plans.
Is checkers a solved game?
English draughts was solved in 2007: with perfect play by both sides it ends in a draw. Against the computer's Easy and Medium levels, though, there is ample room to force a win by setting capture traps.
Should I fight for the center or hide on the edges?
Edge pieces are safe from capture but slow: they reach half as many squares. A few edge men early on are fine while your wall forms, but by the middlegame the player who owns the central diagonals dictates every trade, so drift your strength toward the middle as pieces come off.
Is Checkers free to play?
Yes. Checkers is completely free on Inkplay, with no download, no sign-up, and no in-game purchases. Open the page and play instantly on desktop or mobile.
Can I play Checkers unblocked?
Yes. Checkers runs entirely in your browser with no download, install, or plugins, so it loads instantly and keeps working even on school or work networks where bigger game sites get blocked.
More games to play
In the mood for more? Try Chess, Tic Tac Toe, Connect Four, Reversi, or browse all board games and the full games list on Inkplay. Checkers also appears in Strategy Games.