Checkersचेकर्स

The board and the pieces

Checkers is played by two players on the 32 dark squares of an eight by eight board, set so that each player has a dark square in their left-hand corner. Each side has twelve pieces, called men, on the dark squares of the three rows nearest them. The two middle rows start empty, and the pieces stay on the dark squares all game.

In English draughts Black moves first. In Russian draughts White does. When you set up a table you choose whether player 1, player 2 or a player picked at random makes the first move, and that player takes the colour that starts.

In English draughts the dark squares carry the numbers 1 to 32 used in checkers books, so every move can be written down: 11-15 is a step from square 11 to square 15, 22x15 is a jump, and 22x15x8 is a double jump. In Russian draughts the board has letters and numbers round its edge, as in chess, and moves are written c3-d4 and c3:e5. On a wide screen the moves are listed beside the board.

Moving

On your turn you move one piece, diagonally, to an empty dark square.

• A man steps one square diagonally forward. It never steps backwards.
• In English draughts a king steps one square diagonally in any direction, forwards or back.
• In Russian draughts a king flies: it moves any number of squares along a diagonal, forwards or back, as long as every square on the way is empty, like a bishop in chess.

You must move if you can. If you have no move at all on your turn, you lose.

Capturing

If an enemy piece stands diagonally next to one of your pieces, and the square straight beyond it is empty, you can jump over it to that square. The piece you jumped is taken.

• Capturing is compulsory. If any of your pieces can capture, you must capture, and no other move is allowed. The pieces that must capture pulse on the board.
• If there is more than one capture, you choose which one, even if another would take more pieces.
• After a jump, if the same piece can jump again from where it landed, it must, and it goes on until no jump is left. The whole run is one move, and it may change direction on the way.
• The pieces you jump come off the board when your move is finished. Until then they stay where they are and block the way, and no piece can be jumped twice.

In English draughts men capture forwards only, and a king captures in any direction by jumping a piece right next to it.

In Russian draughts men capture backwards as well as forwards. A king captures from a distance: along a diagonal it can jump an enemy piece any number of squares away, if the squares between are empty, and land on any of the empty squares straight beyond it. If it can capture again from some of those squares, it must land on one of them and carry on.

When a capture can go on in more than one way, tap each landing square in turn. When only one way is left, the piece goes the rest of the way by itself.

Kings

When a man reaches the far row, where the other side started, it is crowned and becomes a king. On this board a second disc with a gold crown is stacked on top of it.

In English draughts crowning ends the move, even if the new king could jump again from the far row. It uses its new powers from your next move.

In Russian draughts a man that reaches the far row in the middle of a capture is crowned at once and, if it can capture again, carries on as a king in the same move. A man that reaches the far row with a plain step is crowned and the move ends.

How the game ends

• You win when you have taken every one of the other side's pieces.
• You also win when the other side still has pieces but no move on its turn, because every one of them is blocked.
• You may resign on your turn if you can see the game is lost. Your opponent wins at once.

The table also ends the game as a draw by itself when:

• The same position, with the same side to move, comes up for the third time. The table warns you when it has come up twice.
• 40 moves each have gone by without a capture and without a man moving, so only kings have been moving. A warning appears ten moves before.

You can also agree a draw. Once both sides have moved, you may offer a draw on your turn, before you move. The offer stays open while your opponent thinks: they can accept it, decline it, or simply move, which declines it. After an offer you have to wait five of your own moves before you can offer again.

Where these rules come from

We could not find a special Nepali form of checkers written down anywhere. Home games in South Asia often use house rules: one player from Pakistan, for example, describes jumps that are optional and kings that move only one square back. Such rules differ from home to home, so this table plays the standard English rules, the draughts of Britain and the Commonwealth, and offers Russian draughts as the other choice:

• English draughts: Wikipedia's English draughts article and the Basic Rules of Draughts of the NorthWest Draughts Federation. Capturing is compulsory with a free choice of capture, a run of jumps must be finished and its pieces come off at the end, crowning ends the move, kings step one square, and the darker pieces move first.
• The 40-move draw comes from the same rules: 40 moves each with no piece taken and no man moved. There a player has to claim it, while here the game ends by itself.
• Russian draughts: the rules of the International Draughts-64 Federation and Wikipedia's Russian draughts article. White moves first, men capture backwards, kings fly, the pieces taken come off only when the capture is over, a man crowned during a capture carries on as a king, and any capture may be chosen.
• Threefold repetition is the Russian federation's rule, used here for English draughts too. The federation's shorter counts for endings with kings, such as 15 moves of kings only, are not used: both rule sets share the 40-move draw.

Russian draughts

Choose Russian before the game. White moves first, men capture backwards as well as forwards, kings fly along the diagonals and capture from a distance, and a man crowned in the middle of a capture carries on as a king. Kings are much stronger, so the first king often decides the game.

Who moves first

Player 1, player 2 or a player picked at random makes the first move. That player plays Black in English draughts and White in Russian draughts. Moving first is a small advantage, so swapping between games keeps things fair.

The computer

Easy looks only a move or so ahead and makes real mistakes, so it is a fair game for a beginner. Normal looks four moves ahead, two for each side, and rarely gives a piece away. Hard thinks for about 0.15 seconds a move, looking around ten moves ahead, and is very hard to beat.

Rules this table does not use

There is no huffing: a missed capture is simply not allowed, so no piece is ever removed as a penalty. Every game starts from the usual position, without the openings picked by lot in match play. There are no clocks; the table's turn timer, when it is on, plays a quick sensible move for you instead.