How to Play Checkers?

Feeling bored and looking for off-screen entertainment, or just wanting to spend a quality gaming night with friends and family? Checkers is the perfect solution. Checkers is a two-player game, more fun and more accessible than most of its alternates. In its early days, it was known as Drafts. The primary goal of winning this game is to capture your opponent’s pieces or block those pieces so they cannot step forward. When you learn more about this interesting game you can use strategy to make it harder for your opponents and increase your chances to win.

Enjoy your Game!

Let's begin with “how to play checkers”. We will start by first understanding the Checkerboard.

Each player has the light-colored square in the bottom right corner of the Checkerboard, which is also the one that is nearest to them. A checkerboard has 32 light-colored and 32 dark-colored boxes. Along with the board, we have the pieces. In checkers, we have 12 pieces each for two players, usually red and black. To set up the elements on the board, each player has to place their twelve pieces in the dark squares of the three rows closest to them. Each player should have four parts in each of the three rows in front of them. There are eight rows on the board, and the pieces will occupy six while leaving 2 for play.

Now we will learn the basics of Checkers game

You will have to choose who will go first, so you must decide on one. The coin toss approach or any strategy that works for you might be used to determine. Although the winning color may already be known, black is usually the first to move in checkers. Remember that each piece can only move diagonally over the dark tiles.

You have a basic idea, so it's time to start moving pieces and move toward our goal of beating the other player

Checker Rules

As we know, the black piece player starts the game by moving a piece.

• A piece can only travel one space diagonally during a basic turn, and we must always remember that it must always remain on a dark square.

• The white and black checkers will each make a move after the black checkers, and they will then exchange turns.

Capturing Pieces

Now we come to the fun part, capturing the opponent's pieces.

• Apart from a normal turn, a component can jump over an opponent piece and land on a diagonal straight line on the other side of the opponent's piece. It will be considered as capturing the piece, but there are some rules that we need to follow while capturing the opponent's pieces.

• You can only grab one element in a single jump. However, numerous jumps are permitted every turn, and you must make the jump if possible. There is no ignoring a capture.

After being captured, a piece is taken from the board and placed aside as your point.

King piece

• Any piece belonging to any player that reaches the board's last row is no longer regarded as a regular piece; instead, it becomes a king piece.

• Two options are there for turning a piece into a king: to place another part of the same color on top of the piece that will become a king or flip your piece over so the crown drawn into it is shown.

Now the question is, what is the advantage of having a king, and how is it different from your regular piece?

A king can travel diagonally on both sides, but a standard bit can only go forward sideways. The ability of a king to travel forward and backward during a turn is a significant advantage because it increases your chances of capturing more of your opponent's pieces. Even better, there is no restriction on the number of king pieces you can have.

Now that you virtually know everything. But there is to know about the game of checkers. Keep in mind that the key to winning is to capture your opponent's pieces.

However, another method to win is forcing your opponent to forfeit even while they still have pieces in their possession. It happens when their parts have no other diagonal move available.

We all are ready to jump into action, but it can be even better with some basic strategies.

Basic Strategies

• Every beginner tries to play in a way that prevents their pieces from being captured, but with total honesty, there are better ways to enjoy checkers. In checkers, you don't have to worry about losing a piece like in chess. Checkers is an offensive game, and it can be enjoyed to the fullest when you try to be aggressive with your game, so when you play a checkers game, try to be offensive and capture pieces, not worrying about how many you lose.

• We must try our hardest to resist giving our opponent an advantage because we know how much playing with a king piece may help a player. The best way to avoid it is always to have your last row filled and shift a bit of your previous row when there is an emergency.

• Every seasoned checker's player will recommend moving your pieces two at a time because it keeps the elements safe from capture, and even if one of them gets taken, the second piece is prepared to capture your opponent's piece.

• In checkers, sacrifice is occasionally required to maintain gameplay, just like in every other board game. A brief setback can result in significant gains later on in the game. They must protect the king's pieces since they have a considerable advantage.

• Crowning as many of your pieces as you can while preventing your opponent from doing the same is what you should concentrate on. As the game progresses, you should make this a top priority. Don't crown your pieces, though, if doing so will result in losing many checkers. Know when to crown your piece strategically.

Tips for Improving Your Game

However, there needs to be a surefire strategy to win at checkers consistently. As you play more, you'll develop your strategic thinking skills.

• Play as many checkers as possible to become an expert, you can play against computers to polish your skills and get better.

• Watch a skilled checker's player, either live or on TV. Simply observing a master move their pieces around the board will teach you a lot. Pay attention to what the professional performs in specific circumstances.

• Consider reading about checkers tactics in books or online. Reading about the methods of specific checkers experts may help you become a better checker player.