Checkers rules

Setting up

An 8×8 board with a dark square in each player's bottom-left corner. Each side has twelve men on the dark squares of the three rows nearest to them. Dark moves first, then the players take turns.

Moving

• A man moves one square diagonally forward, onto an empty dark square.
• A king moves one square diagonally, forwards or backwards.
• Pieces only ever stand on the dark squares.

Capturing

• A piece captures by jumping over an adjacent enemy piece to the empty square straight beyond it. The jumped piece is removed.
• Capturing is compulsory. If any of your pieces can capture, you must capture; the pieces that can are ringed on the board.
• After a jump, if the same piece can jump again, it must, in the same turn, changing direction if it needs to. The whole sequence is one move.
• When there is a choice, you may pick any capture and any sequence, even one that takes fewer pieces, but you must finish the sequence you choose.
• Men capture forwards only; kings capture both ways. A piece cannot be jumped twice in one move.

Kings

A man that reaches the far row is crowned and becomes a king. Reaching the far row ends the move, even in the middle of a capture: the new king waits for its next turn to jump again.

How a game ends

• You win when your opponent has no pieces left, or no legal move on their turn.
• The same position for the third time, with the same player to move, is a draw.
• 40 moves each with no capture and no man moving (kings only) is a draw.
• Resigning loses. A player may offer a draw; in a staked game an agreed draw refunds both stakes with no fee.
• These end the game by themselves: there is nothing to claim and nothing to argue.

The other rule sets

• International draughts: a 10×10 board, twenty men each, White first. Men capture backwards too. Kings fly: they move and capture any distance along a diagonal. You must take the most pieces available, and a man is crowned only if it ends its move on the far row. 25 moves each of kings only is a draw.
• Russian draughts: 8×8, White first, flying kings, men capture backwards, and you may choose any capture. A man reaching the far row mid-capture is crowned at once and carries on jumping as a king. 15 moves each of kings only is a draw.
• Brazilian draughts: the international rules on an 8×8 board. 25 moves each of kings only is a draw.
• In every rule set, captured pieces come off only when the move is over, so a king can never jump the same piece twice or pass over a taken one.

Playing on Ariplex

• Drag a piece, or tap it and tap where it goes. For a multi-jump, tap the square it ends on; where two routes end on the same square, tap the hops in order.
• Every move is played back hop by hop, so you always see what was taken and how.
• Practice is free, with hints and takebacks.

Playing for a stake

• Staked games are American checkers against a person near your rating, in a city you pick: each city is one stake, and both stakes are held the moment you are paired.
• Clocks: 3+2, 5+3 or 10+5 (minutes each, plus seconds added after every move). The server keeps the clock, with a small allowance for your connection's lag; running out of time loses.
• Dark moves first. Whoever had Light last game gets Dark the next, so the first move is shared fairly.
• Each player's first move is not timed, but must come within 20 seconds; if either player does not make their first move, or calls the game off before both have moved, it is aborted and both stakes come back.
• A multi-jump is one move: it is sent and checked whole, so a jump is never half-played.
• If your connection drops, you have 60 seconds of your own turn to come back before the game is forfeited. Time away during your opponent's turn never counts.
• Up to three draw offers a game. Draws of any kind (agreed, threefold repetition, the 40-move rule) refund both stakes with no fee.
• The winner takes the pot minus the fee, paid the moment the game ends. Every game has a public record: replay its moves and check the result at its verify link.

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