Know the Rules of Checkers

There are many types of checker games as per their country rules. This game is also known as the 'Draughts'. This is a two-player board game.

The Board:
The board contains 64 small squares, which are arranged in 8 x 8 grid. The squares are alternating colors with light and dark colors. The game is played on the dark colored squares. The board should be placed in such a way that the light colored square comes to the right hand side of the each player.

Arrangement of pieces:
Each player contains 12 pieces to play. One player has light colored pieces, while the other has dark colored pieces. Each player arranges their pieces to the dark squares of the first three rows.

Moves:
The player who gets pieces back should get a chance to move first and these are determined by tossing a coin. While playing the series of games the players should alternately get the black.

Move your checker forward one space diagonally in either direction to open the dark square. A checker can only move in forward directions until it become king and you may not land on the square which is already occupied by the one of your checker. Play an alternate turn and make only one move per turn.

Jumping:
The checkers can jump if there is an opponent checker before you and the next diagonal to the opponent checker is empty/open. The checker jumps from the opponent checker and removes the checker from which you jumped. That means you have captured the opponent checker. If one jump leads to another jump, you can continue with the next step with the same turn. Continue the same until all possible jumps are completed. But when your checker reaches the last row with all his jumps at a time and crowned, the checker may not have the chance to jump anymore, and your turn will be completed.

You have an opportunity to jump over the crowned/king checker of your opponent in the same way as you jump and capture the other checkers of your opponent.

You may not have chance to jump over your own checkers.

Crowning a king:
When one of your checkers reaches the last row of the board, then he is crowned as king and becomes a king. To king a checker the opponent places the same color checker on top of it. The king checker can move forward as well as backward.

Time management:
In officials the time limit for each move is five minutes, but in case where there is only one possible jump, the player has/allotted only one minute. If the player is able to move within his allotted time then the player losses the game.

Winner of the game:
The player who captures all his opponents’ checkers or when the player blocks the opponent checkers completely by which the latter cannot move anymore- wins the game.

Benefits of playing checkers:
These game improves the abilities of problem solving, time management, decision making, patience and self-control, social skills, concentration, memory recall etc.

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