Master The Game

The board game checkers is a classic that involves moving your pieces diagonally forward with the goal of claiming your opponent’s pieces while ensuring your pieces remain on the board. The game is both simple yet requires a well thought out strategy. By planning and using simple tactics you can ensure yourself control of the game. In order for this to happen, there are four key strategies that you will need to learn.

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In order to master checkers and beat your opponent, you ideally want to protect and defend your pieces for as long as possible while riding your opponent of their pieces. Develop a strong defensive strategy by ensuring that piece that you move is followed by another piece diagonally behind it on your next move. Keeping your pieces close together, ideally, one behind another disables your opponent from being able to jump over a single piece and claim it. This defensive strategy limits your opponent’s moves to the basic diagonal forward movements, providing you with the advantage of being able to move diagonally forward and jump over your opponent.

To win checkers, you need to control the game. You can establish control of the game by moving as many of your pieces into the 8 central squares of the board as quickly as possible. Dominating the 8 squares in the center greatly narrows down your opponent’s options in terms of squares they’re able to move into. As each piece moves into the same surrounding squares, you have the opportunity to claim their piece, preventing them from advancing any further. Once you have claimed a few pieces and are ahead of your opponent, you essentially have control of the game and no longer need to confine your pieces to the 8 center squares.

Once you are ahead, you need to ensure that you stay ahead. This can be done by keeping note of the number of pieces you have left and using them strategically. When you are in the lead, you can begin trading your pieces one for one with your opponent. Upon moving forward and claiming your opponent’s piece, your piece is likely to be taken on their next turn. Due to being ahead, this will not affect you negatively and if you continue playing in this way for the remainder of the game, you will win. Proceed with caution however as playing one-for-one too early on could result in your opponent gaining the upper hand and beating you.

Take advantage of the forced jump rule, which states that if you’re faced with the opportunity to jump, you need to. By following this rule and jumping over your opponent’s pieces to claim, you have the chance to get ahead of them a lot faster. By utilizing jumps, you are essentially reaching a particular square and claiming a piece in one turn, where it would normally take you two turns by simply moving forward. Additionally, you are getting closer to your opponent’s pieces and the opportunity for a double jump is likely to appear, giving you the advantage of removing two of their pieces from the board in just one turn.

Making use of a strong defensive strategy as well as a well thought out offensive strategy will give you the upper hand in the game and result in you becoming a master at checkers who is able to beat every opponent you face.

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