American checkers (English draughts) on an 8 by 8 board. Play the computer on Easy, Medium or Hard, or take turns with a friend on one screen.
This is American checkers, also called English draughts, played on an 8 by 8 board with 12 pieces each on the dark squares. You win by capturing every opposing piece or leaving the other side with no legal move. A man moves one square diagonally forward onto an empty dark square. Purple starts at the bottom and moves up, teal starts at the top and moves down. A jump goes over an adjacent opposing piece to the empty square directly behind it, and the jumped piece is removed. Men jump forward only. Capturing is compulsory: if any jump exists, you must make one, and only pieces that can jump can be selected. You choose which jump if there are several. A multi-jump must be finished: after landing, if the same piece can jump again, it does, and the whole chain is one move. A piece cannot be jumped twice in one move. A man that reaches the far row is crowned and the move ends there, even in the middle of a chain. A king moves and jumps diagonally one square in any of the four directions. There are no flying kings. At the start purple has 7 possible moves, all plain steps.
A side that has no pieces or no legal move on its turn has lost. A game is a draw in three cases. The same position, with the same side to move, appears for the third time. Forty moves by each player, 80 turns in a row, pass with no capture and no man moved, which is what happens when two sides only shuffle kings. Or, in 2 players mode, both players agree: press Draw and then Confirm draw. The computer does not take part in draw offers, so that button is only in 2 players mode. The page tells you the reason when a game ends. There is no move clock, and the Starts option decides who moves first. Computer analysis has shown that checkers is a draw when both sides play perfectly, so a draw is a normal result between strong players.
The computer searches ahead with negamax and alpha-beta pruning, which skips lines that cannot change the result, and it limits how many positions it looks at. Easy looks up to 3 moves ahead, does not play out the jumps at the end of its search, and 3 times in 10 looks only one move ahead, so it can walk into a trade it did not see. Medium looks up to 6 moves ahead and Hard up to 12, and both extend the search through forced jumps at the end, by up to 2 further moves at Medium and up to 4 at Hard, so long exchanges can still be cut short. A position is scored by material with a king worth 1.5 men, how far men have advanced, men that still guard the back row, men in the centre, and the number of moves each side has. A win found sooner scores higher. When two moves score the same it picks one at random, so games differ. Hard is strong but not perfect: the position limit means it sometimes searches less deeply.
Tap a piece and its legal squares light up: a dot for a plain step and a ring for a jump. Tap one to move. If the move is a chain with a choice in it, the piece stops after the jump you picked and the next squares to choose from light up; if there is only one way on, the rest of the chain is played at once. The last move is outlined on both squares and kings carry a crown. When a jump is compulsory, the pieces that can jump have a dashed ring. Undo takes back your last move; against the computer it also takes back the reply. It is not available once the game has ended. With a keyboard, the arrow keys move a cursor over the board, Enter or Space selects a piece and then moves it, and Escape cancels a selection. A screen reader announces each square, its piece and the legal destinations, and the computer's move is announced in full, for example e3 to c5 to a7, capturing 2 pieces. The game in progress, your settings and your win record against the computer are saved in this browser. There is no sound, no online play and no clock.
Yes, in American checkers. If you can jump, you must, and if you have several jumps you may pick any of them. While a jump exists, only the pieces that can jump can be selected. A chain of jumps must be completed, for example a1 to c3 to e5 over two pieces.
When it reaches the far row: row 8 for purple, row 1 for teal. If that happens in the middle of a multi-jump, the piece is crowned and the move ends there. A king moves and jumps one square diagonally in all four directions; it cannot fly along the board.
Choose 2 players. Purple and Teal take turns on the same device and Starts picks who moves first. In this mode you can press Draw and then Confirm draw. These games do not count towards your record against the computer.
Easy looks up to 3 moves ahead and sometimes only 1, so it misses exchanges. Medium looks up to 6 moves ahead and Hard up to 12, with a limit on the positions checked. Hard is a solid opponent but not a perfect one.
When the same position comes up a third time, after 40 moves by each player (80 turns in a row) with no capture and no man moved, or when both players agree in 2 players mode. The result line says which one applied.
Yes, until the game ends. Against the computer, Undo removes your last move and the computer's reply. In 2 players mode it removes one move. A multi-jump counts as one move, so Undo reverses the whole chain.
No. Moves are processed in your browser and not uploaded. The game in progress, your settings (mode, level and who starts) and your win record are saved in this browser's storage only. The page counts visits with Google Analytics, never your moves.