How to Play Checkers

The game checkers can be traced back in 12th century, making the oldest game that is still played nowadays. The goal of this is easy. All you have to do is to dominate the board by removing the pieces of your opponents. If you are not familiar about this, here is a how to play guide to help you out.

Preparing the Board

Checkers is a game of courtesy because alongside with your opponent, you prepare the field where you will dwell. It is more like a chess, but with less complicated moves and pieces. Before you place your pebbles, it is best that you decide about who will go first. You may use a toss coin to determine this. Most of the time, people who possess the black checkers go first.

Know the contents. The board has 23 light squares and 32 dark squares, with a total of 64 alternating dark and light squares. The size of the field is 8 by 8. The colored pebbles will only occupy the 6 rows out of 8, making 2 rows in between open. The pebbles of any color will only occupy the blocks with light colors, while they will only move to a dark colored block.

Playing the Game

In this part, it will discuss the proper way of moving in the board.

Move diagonally with a space. With your opponent, you take turns on playing the pebbles diagonally forward. Just take note that the pieces should move towards the location of your opponent.

Jump to capture. This is one of the most satisfying moves in playing it because it means that you are able to eat or capture an enemy's piece. You may do this if the opponent's piece is just located in front of your piece. Another fun part with this is that you can capture multiple pieces if your location is strategic.

Become king when you reach the opponent's lair. Upon reaching the end of your enemy's side, the piece can be crowned as king and to mark this, you may use the pebble of the enemy to give it a distinguishable mark. The best thing about having this powerful piece is that it can move backward and forward in horizontal way.

Playing checkers is a good and satisfying way of exercising your brain and socializing. To improve more of your techniques, you can watch tutorials or have a friendly match with anyone you know who plays it. The bottom line is that the goal of every game is to eliminate all the pebbles of your enemy.