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Vying Games : American Checkers

Checkers is a very old, very well-known, and very popular game. It's also a game with many variations, and in some cases many names for the same variation. This particular variation is also known as American Checkers, English Draughts, or Straight Checkers.

How to Play

Checkers is played on an 8x8 checkerboard. At the start of the game the board is setup with 3 rows of checkers on each side placed only on the darker squares. The entire game is played on the dark squares.

The checkers are red and white, and red takes the first move.

Your checkers, red or white, will always be lined up at the bottom of the board at the beginning of the game. Therefore, you'll always be moving to the towards the top of the board. If you review a game, the red checkers are always displayed at the top of the board, regardless of who the players are.

On your turn you may move any checker forward (toward the opposite side of the board) one square diagonally, provided the square is empty.

Your opponent's checkers are captured by jumping. As with the single step move, capturing also takes place diagonally in a forward direction. Your checker moves forward two squares in a straight line, passing over an opponent's checker. The checker you jump over is captured (removed from the board).

Capturing is mandatory. If you can jump, you must jump. If you have more than one jump available to you, you may choose between them.

If, after you jump, you can continue jumping with that same checker, you must do so.

If you succeed in reaching the far opposite row (sometimes called kings row) with one of your checkers, it becomes a king. Kings can move and jump in any diagonal direction.

If you jump a normal checker to kings row, it becomes a king and your turn ends immediately. Even if the king would have been able to continue jumping.

The game ends when your opponent can no longer move. This is quite often because you've captured all your opponent's checkers. But, it's also possible to end the game by pinning all your opponent's remaining checkers in such a way that they cannot move.

Draws

It's possible for the game to end in a draw. This occurs when both players have so few checkers remaining that they can't force a victory.

Detecting that a position is a draw is a fairly difficult task for a computer. Our software doesn't attempt to referee games. The only way a game will end in a draw is if both players agree that the game is hopeless. To offer your opponent a draw, click the "offer draw" link while you're playing.

About the Bots

This variant of checkers has been weakly solved as a draw. This means someone was able to write a computer program to prove that perfect play from both players will lead to a draw. It's said to be weakly solved in the sense that there's no computer program that plays the game perfectly (yet).

The bots on this site offer play that's far from perfect.

Unlike with a human opponent, if you click "offer draw" while playing the bots, the response is immediate: either the game will end in a draw or it'll continue.

The bots are very unsophisticated when it comes to determining if a game is a draw or not. They'll likely accept offers they shouldn't, so please don't abuse them... it's not very sporting.