Checkers is the classic two-player board game where pieces move on the diagonals and capture by jumping. Each side lines up 12 men on the shaded squares of an 8x8 board. You can play Checkers unblocked here against a computer with three levels or against a friend on one device. The black-and-white style keeps the board easy to read, even on a small screen.
Choosing a Mode and Level
Pick 2 Player (local) to share the screen with someone next to you, or vs Computer to play solo. For a computer game, choose your color (or let it pick at random), choose a level, and press New game. The three levels really do play differently:
- Easy picks any legal move at random. Because captures are forced, it still takes pieces you leave hanging.
- Medium scores each move it could make right now and chooses one of its top four, so it is decent but beatable.
- Hard searches deep, up to 11 moves ahead, and stops at a fixed amount of thinking so slower devices don’t freeze. It rarely gives a piece away for free.
How to Play Checkers
Black always moves first. Each side fills the three rows nearest its own edge and marches toward the opposite edge.
A regular piece, called a man, steps one square diagonally forward. It can never move backward. To capture, you hop across a diagonally touching rival, landing on the empty square just past it. The jumped piece leaves the board.
Should another hop be open from the landing square, your turn carries on. You only need to click the last square of the chain, and the game plays every hop for you. When two routes end on the same square but take different pieces, you tap the piece you mean to capture.
Forced Jumps, Kings and Draws
Three rules shape almost every game:
- Captures are mandatory. If any of your pieces can jump, a normal move is not allowed. You also have to finish the whole chain once you start it.
- Reaching the far row crowns a king. A king moves and jumps in all four diagonal directions, one square at a time. Getting crowned in the middle of a jump chain ends your turn right there.
- A long stretch with no captures is a draw. After 40 moves by each player without anyone taking a piece, the game ends even.
The game is yours once the other side has lost all 12 pieces, or when it is their turn and none of their pieces can go anywhere.
Checkers Tips and Strategy
- Hold your back row early. While that starting line is filled, the other side has nowhere to crown a king.
- Use the forced-jump rule as bait. Give up one piece when the required capture drops the enemy where you can double jump.
- Control the middle. A center piece has two forward options, while an edge piece has only one.
- Keep pieces paired. A man with a teammate right behind it can’t be jumped from that side.
- Trade when you are ahead. Swapping one piece for one makes a lead bigger in relative terms.
- Get kings for the endgame. Once the board opens up, the side that can move backward usually wins.
Mistakes New Players Make
New players often push pieces up one at a time and leave holes. That gives the opponent a chain of jumps. Another common slip is forgetting that captures are forced, which lets the other side pull your pieces into a trap. Before every move, ask what jumps it will hand your opponent.
Against Hard, a single loose piece in the middle of the board is often enough to lose. Check both diagonals behind any piece you move forward.
Undo, Saving and Device Notes
Undo takes you back to the start of your previous turn, which makes it easy to test an idea against Hard and see what happens. Resign ends a game you can’t save, and starting over asks you to confirm first. An unfinished game stays in your browser, so you can close the tab and keep going later.
Taps, clicks and the arrow keys with Enter all work, so it is comfortable on a phone, a tablet or a school Chromebook. The Settings menu covers text size, high contrast, spacing and how fast the computer moves. There’s no sound, which helps in a library or a quiet classroom.
If You Like Checkers, Try These
A game against Easy takes only a few minutes, while a close one against Hard can fill a lunch break. For more turn-based games, see the board and card games or start with one of these:
- Chess AI uses six kinds of pieces, each with its own way of moving.
- Universal Reversi is about flipping discs to your color rather than removing them.
- Backgammon adds dice, so luck and planning both matter.
