How to play American checkers

The rules of American checkers with diagrams: the 8×8 board, Black's first move, forward captures, short kings, crowning, blocked sides and the draw counts.

American checkers has the shortest reach of the four rule sets on this site: men capture only forward, and kings move one square at a time. Keep this page open beside a game. Every diagram is an example position, drawn with White at the bottom, and every move named here has been checked against the rules engine that runs the games on this site.

The board and the first move

The game uses the 32 dark squares of an 8×8 board, numbered 1 to 32 from the top row as White sees it, left to right. Each side starts with twelve men: Black on squares 1 to 12, White on squares 21 to 32, and eight empty squares between them. Black moves first, towards the high numbers, and then the sides take turns.

The starting position, Black to move. Only the men on squares 9 to 12 can move, which gives seven possible first moves, from 9-13 to 12-16.

How a man moves and captures

A man steps one square diagonally forward onto an empty square. That is a quiet move, because it captures nothing. A man captures by jumping over an enemy piece on the next diagonal square and landing on the empty square just beyond. In American checkers that jump must also go forward.

White to move, with a black man just behind the man on 18. A man cannot capture backwards in this game, so White has only the two quiet moves 18-14 and 18-15.

Capture is compulsory

If you can capture, you must. When any capture exists, the legal moves are captures only, and the board will not let you pick up anything else. A capture must also be finished: if the piece can jump again from its landing square, it carries on in the same move. The jumped pieces come off together when the move ends, and none can be jumped twice.

White to move: 27x18x11 is the only legal move. The man on 30 has quiet moves of its own, but none is allowed while a capture exists, and the man on 27 must jump both 23 and 15.

You choose among captures

When several captures are possible you may take any of them. You are not obliged to take the most pieces, and kings have no priority. Count what each route leaves on the board, because the rules will not do it for you.

White has exactly two legal moves. 26x17x10x1 takes three men and crowns on square 1, while 26x19x12 takes two kings and finishes on square 12, still a man.

Kings move one square

A man that reaches the far row is crowned and becomes a king: White on squares 1 to 4, Black on squares 29 to 32. A king moves one square diagonally in any direction. It captures forwards or backwards by jumping a neighbouring piece to the empty square just beyond, and it can chain jumps as a man does. It cannot slide along a diagonal, as the kings of the other three rule sets here do.

A king on 18 in open space has four moves and no more: 18-14, 18-15, 18-22 and 18-23.

Crowning ends the move

A man that reaches the king row by capturing is crowned there and stops, even if a king could jump again from that square. It may make no further jump until the opponent has moved.

White's only move is 11x2. The man jumps 7 and is crowned on square 2, and the move ends there, so the black man on 6 stays and it is Black's turn.

How a game ends

You lose if it is your turn and you have no pieces left, or pieces but no legal move. So a game can end with the loser's pieces still on the board.

White to move. 13-9 wins on the spot: the man on 5 cannot step to 9, and cannot jump it because 14 is occupied, so Black has a piece and no legal move. Neither 14-9 nor 14-10 blocks it.

Draws

You can propose a draw with Offer a draw. Two counts also end a game as a draw. They are taken from rule 1.32 of the WCDF Rules of Draughts, and this site applies them by itself, so nobody has to claim anything.

Repetition. The same pieces on the same squares, with the same side to move, for the third time.
Forty moves. Neither player has advanced an uncrowned man towards the king row during their own previous 40 moves, and no piece has been removed from the board during those moves. That is 80 plies of king moves without a capture, a ply being one move by one side.

A man move or a capture restarts the forty-move count, and a win reached on the last counted move beats the draw. If you are ahead with kings, use those moves to make progress, because shuffling back and forth lets the count run out.

Reading the moves

Moves are written in square numbers, which the board shows on its dark squares while Coordinates is on in board settings. A quiet move joins start and end with a dash, as in 18-14. A capture uses an x and lists every landing square, so 27x18x11 started on 27, landed on 18 and finished on 11. The other rule sets write theirs differently, as the notation page explains.

Compulsory capture as a weapon

Because your opponent must capture, you can sometimes choose what they capture. A shot is exactly that: men given up on purpose so that a bigger capture follows.

White plays 26-23, and Black's only legal reply is 19x26. That puts a black man on 26, where 31x22x13 jumps it and the man on 17, taking two men for the one given up and leaving White with two men against one.

Forcing captures shows how to look for these. Try each rule yourself in the American lessons, then start a game under these rules.