How To Win at Checkers

Tips for Improving at Checkers

It’s one thing to know how to play checkers, but it’s another matter entirely to know how to win at Checkers. Whole books have been written discussing the strategies of winning Checkers, so I’m not going to be able to help you become a master draughts player in a few words.

I can point the way with a few tips for becoming a better Checkers player. I’ll point the way to some good Checkers reading, while offering one or two of the most basic concepts of Checkers. Remember, when trying to become a really good Checkers player, you’re going to need to study and play often.

Study Checkers Books

It’s taken centuries to gain the accumulated Checkers wisdom that exists today. You can either spend your life using trial and error and your own insights to equal or surpass what it took checkers masters centuries to learn, or you can read a few of the best Checks books to learn what the droughts masters have to say on the subject.

My advice is to read a few good checkers strategy books and increase your learning curve. Familiar Themes by Ben Boland is probably the best Checkers book for a beginning player wanting to improve.

Read Online Checkers Articles

If you’ve read this far, you’re on the right track. But you can read online checkers tips in a number of places, probably none better than at the American Checkers Federation website. These people can tell you far more eloquently than I can how to improve at Checkers.

Start by reading these 8 Checkers Strategy articles. From there, you can move on to other, intermediate Checkers suggestions and advice.

Control the Center of the Board

Grab a commanding position in the center of the board, if at all possible. The center squares allow economy of movement when defending or attacking, parrying your opponents’ moves, while allowing you to strike right, left or center with one or two moves.

In warfare, this is called “internal lines”. If one army had to move twice as far to get to the point of attack as their enemy, that enemy possesses a tremendous advantage. In checkers, if one side has to move twice as many spaces to get to the same point, the one with the economy of movement will have a decided advantage.

Remember that controlling the center of the board isn’t done by one or two pieces, though. If you have checkers in the center of the board, but they can only move forward or to the side, your opponent can draw you forward and to the side with one draught. So like in warfare, redundancy and depth of defense also matter.

Improve Your Crossboard Technique

“Crossboard” is position that neither player knows a solution to, because it is rare enough you have to analyze it on your own. By reading books and websites, you’ll be able to study most opening moves. You’ll also be able to study the principles of endgame strategies, when so few checkers remain on the board.

But once you get past the first few moves and both sides have begun removing pieces, you are likely to face situations you haven’t seen yet. In these situations, all the study you have done on checkers strategy and principles will be put to the test. In these situations, analyzing the across the board problem firsthand helps you improve your abstract checkers skills.

It’s best not to consult a book or other study guide when facing this problem. You’ll improve if you analyze each potential move and decide from checkers principles which is your most advantageous move, instead of consulting a book. Apply what you know from your endgame studies to apply your crossboard moves.

Remember, when making your decisions and looking at all the possibilities, never move one of your pieces. That’s a no-no in tournament checkers and is a bad habit to get into.

Play Checkers Often

To become a better Checkers player, you’ll need to challenge yourself often and continually improve through playing Checkers. Join a checkers club. Attend tournaments. Any chance you have to play new opponents, take that opportunity. Play people whom you know to be better than you and study their technique.

Playing checkers regularly will let you improve, let you apply the tips you read about and eventually instruct you how to win at Checkers.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Board Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “How To Win at Checkers”

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   January 20, 2010 at 6:21 pm

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   January 25, 2010 at 7:32 pm

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