How to Win at Checkers: Strategies Tested by Computer

To win at checkers, guard your back row, don't rush your men forward, and use the jumping rule against your opponent. Because a jump is always compulsory, you can often choose your opponent's next move for them, and the best trick in the game is to give up one piece so you can jump two back. When you get down to kings, trap the lone king in a single corner.

We didn't want to repeat tips just because every guide repeats them, so we tested them. Here's how we did it, what held up, and two popular tips that didn't. If you're new to the game, the rules are on the Checkers game page.

How we tested

We had two copies of the computer player from Poozee's Checkers play each other. The two copies were identical except for one habit: one valued it, the other didn't. Both started from the current version of our computer player (tuned on these results, as section 3 explains), and each pair played 1,000 games. Every move was chosen by looking 4 plies ahead, two moves by each side. To keep the games varied, the first 6 plies of every game were random, and each random opening was played twice with the colors swapped, so neither side got the better start. A draw counted as half a win, and games used the 40-move draw rule.

A computer playing a habit isn't a person, but the result tells you whether that habit wins games when everything else is equal.

A score of 50% means the habit made no difference. Below 50% means the habit helped the version that kept it.

1. Guard your back row

Your back row is the row your opponent needs to reach to crown a king. While your men sit there, the squares are full, and an enemy man that arrives in front of them can't be crowned.

This was one of the two biggest effects we measured. The copy that ignored its back row scored 30.5%, and the gap grew when both copies searched deeper (26.7% at 6 plies, over 600 games). In a game, move your back-row men last, and only when something better needs them.

2. Don't rush your men forward

A man that runs ahead alone is easy to trap: once it's past your other pieces, nothing protects it. The copy that valued pushing men forward more than three times as much as usual scored 30.7%, as bad as ignoring the back row. Advance in groups, with a friend behind each piece so there's no empty square to jump into.

3. Don't chase the center for its own sake

"Control the center" is common advice, and it didn't hold up: the copy that gave itself extra points for pieces on the center squares scored 43.8%. We tuned Poozee's own computer player on this result and it no longer scores the center at all. Center pieces are useful when they support an attack or block one, not just for being there.

4. Trading when ahead: less important than you'd think

The usual advice is to trade pieces when you're ahead, because each even trade makes your lead bigger in proportion: 5 pieces against 4 is close, but after three trades it's 2 against 1. The arithmetic is right, but in our test it made no measurable difference: the copy that didn't try to trade down scored 51.1%, which is within the normal ups and downs of 1,000 games. Trades that happen naturally are fine. Just don't give up a good position to force one.

5. Use forced jumps: give one, take two

Because jumps are compulsory, you can make your opponent's move for them. The classic trick, often called a shot, is to offer a piece so that the forced jump puts an enemy man where you can jump two.

Squares are named from Red's side: columns a to h from the left, rows 1 to 8 from the bottom. Red moves b4 to c5, next to Black's man on b6. Black must jump it, from b6 over c5 to d4, because that's Black's only legal move. Then Red's man on c3 jumps twice: over d4 to e5, and over f6 to g7.

We checked the position with the game engine: of Red's four possible moves, b4 to c5 is the only one that wins material by force, and the Hard computer finds it. To spot shots in your own games, ask before every move: "if I put a piece here, where does their forced jump land, and what can I jump then?"

Pro tip: The same trick works against you. Before moving a piece next to an enemy man, check whether your opponent can offer a piece that forces you to jump into a double.

6. Two kings against one: where the lone king should go

Late in the game you'll often reach two kings against one. We worked out every position with two red kings against one black king by exhaustive search, so these numbers are exact, not estimates. With the lone king to move, the two kings win 87.5% of the 14,880 positions. Of the rest, almost all (1,796 of 1,862) are positions where the lone king can jump one of the kings right away. The win isn't quick, though: with perfect play it can take 17 moves by each side.

Where the lone king stands makes a big difference. This table shows how many moves the lone king lasts on average, with the two hunting kings placed on every possible pair of squares and both sides playing perfectly. The empty cells are light squares, which are never used.

The single corners, a1 and h8, are a trap: a lone king there lasts 3.7 moves on average, and the squares around them are the next worst. The double corners (a7 and b8, g1 and h2) and the middle of the board hold out about three times as long.

• If you have the lone king, stay off the long diagonal from a1 to h8, and head for a double corner or the center.
• If you're hunting it, drive it toward a single corner. Once it's there, it runs out of squares quickly.

Practice against the computer

On Poozee's Checkers, Easy misses a lot, so it's a good place to practice shots. Medium looks two moves ahead for each side. Hard searches much deeper and punishes loose pieces, and it plays with the tuned weights from this test. You switch colors every game, and Hint shows the move Hard would play for you.

Keep playing

• Play Checkers against the computer or a friend
• How to win Connect Four
• Dots and boxes strategy, another game won by counting ahead
• Chess openings for beginners
• Othello strategy, tested the same way with Poozee's Reversi
• Four in a Row