| Overview |
 English checkers (English draughts) is a two-player board game played on a square checkerboard. This game belongs to the draughts (checkers) family of games.
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| Board |
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English Checkers is played on a common 8x8 checkerboard. The initial position of dark and light checkers (usually red and white) is shown in the following picture:
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| Objective |
| The goal of English Checkers is to capture all opponent's checkers or to block them, leaving the opponent without any legal move. |
| Play |
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Players move alternately, starting with the player with the dark checkers. Ordinary checkers can move diagonally forward to an adjacent cell. When an ordinary checker ends its move on the last row of the board it is promoted to a king. If an ordinary checker reaches the last row by capturing an enemy piece (i.e. by jumping over it) then this checker is promoted to a king and the move ends immediately even if the new king can continue capturing other enemy pieces. Kings can move diagonally both forward and backward to an adjacent cell. Neither ordinary checkers nor kings can land on an occupied cell. |
| Captures |
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Ordinary checkers and kings can capture an adjacent enemy piece if the next cell in the same direction is empty. The capture is made by jumping over this enemy piece and placing the own piece on the next empty cell. The captured enemy piece is removed from the board. If the same player's piece can continue capturing another enemy piece then it must do it. The direction in which an enemy piece can be captured is the same as for non-capture moves, i.e. the ordinary checkers can only jump diagonally forward and the kings can jump both diagonally forward and backward. Capturing is mandatory. This means that if a player can capture an enemy piece (or pieces) on his turn then he must do so. If a player has a choice of jump sequences then he can choose any sequence he wants. |
