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What is the game of Checkers?
The board game known as Checkers is a relative to the more complicated game called Chess. It is also played on the same red and black squared “checker” board as Chess.
What are its component parts?
The aforementioned Checkerboard and 12 red and 12 black game pieces or “disks” are all you need to play. If you want to keep track for your own sake as to who wins more games, you may want a slip of paper and a pencil.
Who plays Checkers?
Adults and children from as young as five or six can and do play checkers. Checkers is a game for two opponents. The game is played most commonly in the US as well as British and European countries and to a lesser degree throughout the rest of the world.
How is Checkers played?
On a board of 32 red and 32 black squares, each player places their 12 colored pieces on the black squares in the first three rows facing them. Each opponent takes turns moving one piece at a time, only on black squares and with some exceptions only forward and only one square at a time. The exception to “only forward” is that once you make it all the way to the other side you are crowned king and may move either direction on the board though still and always only on black squares. The exception to moving only one square at a time is that you may jump directly over one of your opponent’s pieces or several of them one at a time. Once you do this, the piece you have jumped is lost to your opponent and is removed from the board and kept on your side. Your own lost pieces serve as the crown on top of any piece of yours that becomes a king. Your opponent uses your lost pieces to crown your kings upon your making it across (and, some play it, saying, and “crown me”). You may not jump over your own pieces. You must jump over a piece directly adjacent to yours and onto an empty square directly next to the piece you have jumped.
The object of Checkers.
The object of Checkers is to be the last one with game pieces remaining on the board. It is therefore advantageous to jump as many of your opponents pieces as you can while preserving as many of your own as you can. It is also helpful to get as many kings as you can as they have more mobility, which is strategically helpful to you.
Tricks to winning.
Protecting your pieces by having another right behind it so it can’t be jumped is a good strategy. Luring your opponent into a position where you can jump two or three of their pieces while they jump one of yours is a good sacrificial strategy or trick you can use. Luring in pieces while you move a piece down toward becoming a king is a good move as well. There are endless strategies, which may be found in numerous books, and many are based on mathematical solutions. If you would like to become the best Checker player of your neighborhood simply do enough research and you could be.
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