Piece of Cake
How to play Checkers
Jump your opponent’s pieces, crown your own and clear the board.
Goal
Capture all of your opponent’s pieces, or leave them with no move to make.
Setup
Two players, twelve pieces each, on the dark squares of an 8×8 board. Colours are drawn at random when the game starts, so a rematch on the same table usually swaps who goes first. Black always moves first.
Moving
Tap one of your highlighted pieces, then tap a highlighted square. An ordinary piece moves one square diagonally forward, toward your opponent’s side.
Jumping
Jump an opponent’s piece by hopping diagonally over it into the empty square beyond; the jumped piece is captured. If a jump is available you must take one, though you may choose which. After a jump, if the same piece can jump again it must keep going — tap each landing square in turn.
Kings
A piece that reaches the far row is crowned a king, and its move ends there. Kings move and jump diagonally backwards as well as forwards, one square at a time.
Winning
You win when your opponent has no pieces left, or none of their pieces can move.
Draws
The game is drawn when 40 moves pass on each side without a capture or an uncrowned piece moving, or when the same position comes round for the third time with the same player to move.
Tips
Keep your back row at home as long as you can — it stops your opponent crowning. Trading pieces helps whoever is ahead, and pieces on the edge can never be jumped.
Resigning
Forfeiting resigns the game and hands your opponent the win. Leaving a game in progress does the same.
These are the rules Piece of Cake plays, word for word: the same rulesheet is in the app under Help → Checkers. Every roll, deal and move is checked on our servers, so nobody can bend them.
Other board games in the same subscription: Chess (2 players, about 10–60 minutes); Reversi (2 players, about 10–25 minutes); Four in a Row (2 players, about 5–15 minutes).
