A game of checkers usually lasts about 100 to 220 moves in all, or 50 to 110 by each player, going by thousands of games between evenly matched computer players. In 2,000 games between two copies of Poozee's Medium computer player, the median game took 152 moves, 76 by each side; the shortest took 45 and the longest 864. Wins came sooner than draws: a median of 120 moves for a win and 212 for a draw.
How many minutes that is depends on how fast you think, so we can't measure it from computer games. Everything below comes from 8,415 seeded games between the computer players behind Poozee's Checkers, each one replayed exactly. If you're new to the game, start with how to play checkers.
What counts as a move
A move is one turn by one player: a step, or a whole jump sequence however many pieces it takes. That's how the official rules count. The WCDF Rules of Draughts, which the American Checker Federation publishes on its website, count the 40-move draw over each player's "own previous 40 moves" and set the tournament clock in moves per player.
So "152 moves" below means 152 turns in all, 76 by each player. Game programmers call one turn a ply; it's the same thing.
How many moves in a game of checkers
How we tested. Easy looks one move ahead with a lot of noise, Medium looks 4 moves ahead (two by each side) and picks at random among its best moves, and Hard searches much deeper. In the game Hard thinks for 0.8 seconds a move; here we held it to exactly 8 moves ahead so every game replays exactly. Easy and Medium make random choices, so we played 2,000 games each from the usual start. Hard at a fixed depth plays nearly the same game every time from the same position, so we started its games from every position four moves in: the 1,469 ways the first two moves by each side can go reach 805 different positions, and we played one game from each. Easy and Medium played those 805 starts too, for a fair comparison.
| Players | Median | Middle half | Range | Drawn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy, start | 175 | 120 to 213 | 38 to 404 | 40.9% |
| Medium, start | 152 | 99 to 217 | 45 to 864 | 28.3% |
| Easy, 805 starts | 179 | 118 to 214 | 40 to 395 | 42.1% |
| Medium, 805 starts | 150 | 98 to 217 | 43 to 624 | 24.2% |
| Hard, 805 starts | 153 | 108 to 194 | 48 to 785 | 41.5% |
Half the games were shorter than the median and half longer. The middle half runs from the quarter mark to the three-quarter mark, so half of all games fell inside it, and the range runs from the shortest game to the longest. "Start" is the usual starting position; "805 starts" are the positions four moves in. Halve any number for the moves by each player.
- The middle half of games ran from about 100 to about 220 moves at every level.
- Stronger play didn't make games longer. From the same 805 starts, Hard's median game took 153 moves and Medium's 150. Easy's took longer, 179: its wins took longer than Medium's or Hard's, and it drew far more often than Medium. Hard's games were the most even in length: its middle half ran from 108 to 194.
- A few games run very long. At Medium, 9.8% of games lasted 300 moves or more. Most of them were games where one side got ahead and couldn't finish: in 118 of those 196 games, one side had been two pieces up.
This is how the 2,000 Medium games from the start spread out:
| Moves in all | Moves each | Medium games |
|---|---|---|
| Under 100 | Under 50 | 25.0% |
| 100 to 149 | 50 to 74 | 23.8% |
| 150 to 199 | 75 to 99 | 22.1% |
| 200 to 299 | 100 to 149 | 19.4% |
| 300 or more | 150 or more | 9.8% |
Wins are short, draws are long
| Players | Median win | Median draw | Shortest draw |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy, start | 133 | 208 | 131 |
| Medium, start | 120 | 212 | 122 |
| Easy, 805 starts | 131 | 209 | 142 |
| Medium, 805 starts | 121 | 211 | 128 |
| Hard, 805 starts | 116 | 180 | 133 |
Draws take longer because of how a draw happens. Under the 40-move rule, a game is drawn only after 40 moves by each player, 80 in all, with no capture and no man moving. Every one of our draws ended exactly 80 moves after its last capture or man move, so a draw always runs at least 80 moves past the last real change on the board.
That countdown is a big part of a drawn game. In our Medium draws, the last 80 moves made up 33.8% of all the moves played, and in that stretch only kings moved.
Why every game has to end
The 40-move rule is what stops a game going on forever. A man only moves forward, so each man can make only a handful of moves before it's crowned or stuck, and there are only 24 pieces to capture. Once nothing is left but kings that can't catch each other, the 80-move count runs out.
Tournament rules end draws sooner
Tournament rules have a second draw that Poozee doesn't use: a player who is about to repeat a position for the third time can claim a draw. In 425 of our 565 Medium draws a position did come up a third time, a median of 94 moves before the 40-move rule ended the game. Under tournament rules those draws could have been claimed that much earlier.
When the first capture and the first king happen
The fighting starts almost at once:
- First capture: in 1,871 of the 2,000 Medium games, the first capture came on the third move of the game, Black's second turn. Easy, which plays more loosely, made its first capture on the fourth move in its median game.
- First king: the median Medium game crowned its first king on move 42 (about 21 by each player), with the middle half between moves 38 and 46. Only 18 of the 2,000 games ended without a king.
So in a typical game the first king arrives after about 20 moves by each player, well under a third of the way through. Most of a game is played with kings on the board.
How many pieces are left at the end
A game is won when the other side has no legal move, and most of the time that's because it has no pieces left:
- The loser had no pieces left in 1,218 of the 1,435 Medium games that someone won. In the other 217, the loser still had pieces, all of them blocked.
- The winner usually had 3 to 5 pieces left: the median winner finished with 4.
- Blocked wins were quicker: a median of 92 moves, against 126 when every piece was captured.
- Draws ended with a median of 5 pieces on the board, and 364 of the 565 draws had the same number on each side.
What makes a game of checkers short or long
Winning material early is what makes a game short. In 1,499 of the 2,000 Medium games, one side got two pieces ahead at some point (with no jump left to make, so not halfway through a trade). That side won 89.7% of those games, and when it won, it needed a median of only 24 more moves to finish. The 501 games where nobody ever got two pieces ahead lasted a median of 197 moves, and 429 of them were draws.
A mismatch is short too. We matched each level against the next one up from the start, 500 games with each side moving first. The stronger player won about 9 games in 10, and the median game was about half as long as between two Medium players:
| Match | Games | Median game | Stronger side won |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medium against Easy | 1,000 | 76 | 93.3% |
| Hard against Medium | 1,000 | 87 | 89.8% |
Not finishing makes a game long. Our longest Medium game lasted 864 moves: Red got two pieces ahead on move 46, and the game still ended in a draw with one piece each. Medium even drew 52 games with two kings against one, and Hard, held to 8 moves ahead, drew 39 of its 805 games the same way. Two kings beat one king in almost every position, as our guide to winning at checkers works out exactly, so in most of those endings the side with two kings could have won. Learning to trap a lone king is the surest way to turn a long draw into a short win.
How long does checkers take in minutes?
That depends on the players, and we only measured computer games, so we won't guess. What the rules do say is how fast a tournament game must go. Under the WCDF rules, each player's clock allows 30 moves in the first hour, then 15 moves in each half hour after that, with any time saved carried forward. At that pace, a game of 76 moves by each player, the length of our median Medium game, could use up to 3 hours of each player's clock. That's a limit, not a measurement of how long games really take.
On Poozee, the computer replies after half a second at Easy and Medium and thinks for 0.8 seconds at Hard, so in a 152-move game its 76 replies take about a minute in all. The rest is your own thinking time.
How to make your games shorter (or longer)
- To finish faster, win a piece and trade down. Every even trade when you're ahead brings the end closer, and a two-piece lead won about 9 games in 10 for Medium.
- Learn to trap a lone king. It's the difference between a short win and an 80-move countdown to a draw.
- Watch for shots. A checkers shot wins two pieces for one, and that kind of lead ends games quickly.
- To hold a game you're losing, keep pieces on the board. Avoid trades, keep your back row, and head for a double corner with your last king.
Pro tip: When you're behind and only kings are left, the 40-move count is on your side: it starts over only when someone captures. Stay out of reach, head for a double corner, and every safe move brings the draw closer.
Keep playing
- Play Checkers against the computer at Easy, Medium or Hard
- How to play checkers: forced jumps, kings and the 40-move rule
- How to win at checkers: back-row defense, shots and two kings against one
- Does going first matter in checkers?, from many of the same computer games
Frequently asked questions
How many moves are in a game of checkers?
Usually somewhere around 100 to 220 moves in all, or 50 to 110 by each player. In 2,000 games between our Medium computer players, the median game took 152 moves, the shortest 45 and the longest 864.
How many moves does it take to draw in checkers?
A game is drawn after 40 moves by each player, 80 in all, with no capture and no man moving. Every draw in our games ended exactly 80 moves after the last capture or man move, and the shortest Medium draw took 122 moves.
What is the fastest way to win at checkers?
Win material early and keep trading. In our Medium games, once one side was two pieces up it won 89.7% of the time, and the winner needed a median of just 24 more moves to finish.
How long does a game of checkers take in minutes?
It depends on the players, so we can't measure it from computer games. Under tournament rules, each player's clock allows 30 moves in the first hour and 15 moves in every half hour after that.