Checkers Openings Explorer: Every First Move, Rated

What is a checkers opening?

A checkers opening is the first few moves of a game, and the name players give to a known sequence of them. Maurice Chamblee, quoted in Richard Pask's Checkers in a Nutshell, called it "an initial combination of moves, fully executed". The named lines on this page run from one move to five.

Black always moves first, and only the four men on squares 9, 10, 11 and 12 can move at the start. That gives Black seven possible first moves. White has seven replies to each, so there are 49 two-move openings and 302 legal ways to play the first three moves.

Moves here are written in standard notation. The 32 dark squares are numbered 1 to 32, starting in Black's double corner with Black at the top. Black's men start on 1 to 12 and White's on 21 to 32. A move goes from-to, so 11-15 moves the man on 11 to 15. A capture uses an x, as in 15x22, and a double jump lists both landing squares.

If you are new to the game, read how to start a game of checkers first. It covers the habits that matter more than any named line: take the centre, keep your back row, and never give away a free jump.

What is the best first move in checkers?

11-15 is the best first move in checkers in published theory. It moves a man from Black's single corner towards the centre. The Irish Draughts Association calls it "universally regarded as the best opening move". Richard Pask's Checkers in a Nutshell ranks all seven first moves by White's strongest answer to each: 11-15 first, 9-14 second, 9-13 weakest. The Irish Draughts list gives the same order.

Our engine searched every first move 12 half-moves ahead. It gives the same place as theory to 9-14, 11-16 and 10-14, and puts 11-15 joint 3rd and 9-13 joint 5th. Its best and worst first moves are only 0.11 apart, a small fraction of one man. It finds no first move that wins material within 12 half-moves, so the gaps come only from its small bonuses for advanced men and men near the centre. Read its order as a tie-break between near-equal moves.

How theory and our engine rate every first move

Published theory is the order Pask and the Irish Draughts Association give, drawn from a century of master play. Engine is our score for Black after a fresh 12-half-move search. The engine sees only those 12 half-moves and knows no theory, so the two can disagree.

What are the best replies to each first move?

Pask quotes a rule from Maurice Chamblee: a first move is only as strong as the best reply to it. The table puts Pask's best answer for White next to our engine's view of it. The two pick the same reply after 9-14, 10-15 and 12-16.

Pask marks 21-17 as a losing reply to both 9-14 and 10-14. Our engine agrees and ranks it last both times (7 of 7 after 9-14 with a score of −1.20 for White, 7 of 7 after 10-14 with −1.11). A score near −1.00 means White is about a man down. After 11-15, Pask's top reply is 23-19 and our engine's is 22-17.

Every reply to every first move

White's seven replies in Pask's order, strongest first, with our engine's score for White and its place among the seven.

Black plays	White replies	Published theory	Engine (depth 12)	Compared
11-15	23-19	1st of 7, strongest	−0.09, joint 4th	Differ
	22-17	2nd of 7	0.00, joint 1st	Agree
	23-18 (Cross)	3rd of 7	−0.11, 6th	Differ
	24-20	4th of 7	−0.09, joint 4th	Agree
	22-18 (Single Corner)	5th of 7	−0.06, 3rd	Differ
	24-19 (Second Double Corner)	6th of 7	0.00, joint 1st	Differ
	21-17	7th of 7, weakest	−0.14, 7th	Agree
9-14	22-18	1st of 7, strongest	−0.06, 1st	Agree
	22-17	2nd of 7	−0.09, joint 2nd	Agree
	24-20	3rd of 7	−0.11, 5th	Differ
	24-19	4th of 7	−0.09, joint 2nd	Agree
	23-19	5th of 7	−0.14, 6th	Differ
	23-18	6th of 7	−0.09, joint 2nd	Differ
	21-17	7th of 7, loses	−1.20, 7th	Agree
11-16	22-18	1st of 7, strongest	−0.11, joint 5th	Differ
	23-18	2nd of 7	−0.17, 7th	Differ
	24-19	3rd of 7	−0.09, joint 1st	Agree
	22-17	4th of 7	−0.09, joint 1st	Agree
	21-17	5th of 7	−0.09, joint 1st	Differ
	24-20	6th of 7	−0.09, joint 1st	Differ
	23-19	7th of 7, weakest	−0.11, joint 5th	Differ
10-15	21-17	1st of 7, strongest	+0.06, 1st	Agree
	22-17	2nd of 7	+0.03, 2nd	Agree
	22-18	3rd of 7	−0.03, 4th	Differ
	23-18	4th of 7	−0.06, joint 5th	Differ
	23-19	5th of 7	−0.06, joint 5th	Agree
	24-19	6th of 7	0.00, 3rd	Differ
	24-20	7th of 7, weakest	−0.09, 7th	Agree
10-14	24-19	1st of 7, strongest	−0.06, joint 2nd	Differ
	22-18	2nd of 7	−0.06, joint 2nd	Agree
	22-17	3rd of 7	−0.03, 1st	Differ
	23-19	4th of 7	−0.09, joint 4th	Agree
	24-20	5th of 7	−0.09, joint 4th	Agree
	23-18	6th of 7	−0.09, joint 4th	Agree
	21-17	7th of 7, loses	−1.11, 7th	Agree
12-16	24-20	1st of 7, strongest	−0.09, joint 1st	Agree
	22-18	2nd of 7	−0.11, joint 5th	Differ
	23-18	3rd of 7	−0.17, 7th	Differ
	24-19	4th of 7	−0.09, joint 1st	Agree
	22-17	5th of 7	−0.09, joint 1st	Differ
	21-17	6th of 7	−0.09, joint 1st	Differ
	23-19	7th of 7, weakest	−0.11, joint 5th	Differ
9-13	22-18	1st of 7, strongest	−0.06, joint 4th	Differ
	24-19	2nd of 7	0.00, 1st	Differ
	23-18	3rd of 7	−0.06, joint 4th	Differ
	23-19	4th of 7	−0.06, joint 4th	Agree
	24-20	5th of 7	−0.06, joint 4th	Agree
	22-17	6th of 7	−0.03, joint 2nd	Differ
	21-17	7th of 7, weakest	−0.03, joint 2nd	Differ

What are the named checkers openings?

14 of the 15 lines named in Hoyle's start with 11-15. Two sources use the names a little differently. The Irish Draughts Association names each first move. Hoyle's Games Modernized names longer lines of two to five moves. Both call something the Bristol: Irish Draughts uses it for 11-16 alone, Hoyle's for 11-16 24-20 16-19.

Hoyle's explains a few of the names. The Single Corner plays both moves from one single corner towards the other. The Cross plays its second move across the direction of the first. The Old Fourteenth is named after game 14 in Joshua Sturge's Guide to the Game of Draughts of 1800, and the Defiance is so called because it stops the Fife.

What is the three-move restriction?

The three-move restriction is how tournament checkers is played. The first three moves are drawn at random from a list of accepted openings, called ballots. The two players then play two games with that opening, each taking Black once and White once.

Before 1900, championships were played with no restriction, a style called Go As You Please. A two-move restriction ran in the United States from 1900 to 1934 and in the British Isles until the 1950s. The US championship has used three-move ballots since 1934. The Irish Draughts Association says Go As You Please is still the most popular way to play.

Style	What is fixed	Openings
Go As You Please	Nothing	Any
Two-move restriction	Black's first move and White's reply	47 (Irish Draughts)
Three-move restriction	The first three moves	156 accepted (Wikipedia)

There are 302 legal ways to play the first three moves, and our explorer scores every one of them. The accepted list has 156. When checkers was solved in 2007, the proof covered the starting position only, not every ballot (see is checkers solved?).

How did we score the moves?

The published ranks come from Pask and the Irish Draughts Association. Both rank Black's first moves, and Pask also ranks White's replies. Neither ranks a third move, so from there on the explorer shows the engine score alone, with a note that there is no published verdict.

Every engine score on this page comes from the same engine that plays the AI on this site. For each position in the first three moves, it searched every legal move 12 half-moves ahead, which is 6 moves for each side, with no time limit. It uses minimax with alpha-beta pruning: it assumes both sides pick their best reply, and skips lines that cannot change the result.

At the end of each line it counts material. A man is worth 1.00 and a king 3.00, and a man gets up to 0.20 more as it advances and up to 0.10 more near the centre. A score is from the point of view of the side to move, so +0.06 means a slightly better position and −1.00 means a man down. "Wins" means the search found a forced win.

Deeper positions in the explorer are scored live in your browser at the same depth, with a five-second cap, so a busy position may show a shallower search. The note under the move list says how deep each search went. These scores are one engine's opinion, not the solved result. To check a position from your own game, set it up in the checkers solver, and read the opening traps lesson for the tricks these lines can hide.

To try an opening yourself, play checkers against the AI, check the American checkers rules, or browse the strategy lessons.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best first move in checkers?

Published theory says 11-15. The Irish Draughts Association calls it "universally regarded as the best opening move", and Richard Pask's Checkers in a Nutshell ranks it first of Black's seven choices, with 9-14 second and 9-13 last. Our engine, searching 12 half-moves ahead, puts 9-14 and 12-16 joint first and 11-15 joint 3rd. All seven moves score within 0.11 of a man, so read the engine's order as a tie-break and published theory as the better guide.

How many first moves are there in checkers?

Seven. Black moves first, and only the four men on squares 9 to 12 can move: 9-13, 9-14, 10-14, 10-15, 11-15, 11-16 and 12-16. White then has seven possible replies to each of them.

What do the numbers in checkers moves mean?

The 32 dark squares are numbered 1 to 32, starting in Black's double corner with Black shown at the top of the board. Black's men start on 1 to 12 and White's on 21 to 32. A move is written from-to, so 11-15 moves the man on 11 to 15. A capture uses x, as in 15x22.

What is the three-move restriction in checkers?

It is the way tournament checkers is played. The first three moves, two by Black and one by White, are drawn at random from a list of accepted openings, and the two players play two games with that opening, swapping colours. The US championship has used it since 1934, and the list holds 156 openings.

Are the engine scores on this page the truth?

No. They come from this site's own engine looking 12 half-moves ahead, not from the 2007 proof that solved checkers. That proof shows perfect play from the start ends in a draw. Treat the scores as one engine's opinion, and the move order of published theory as the better guide for small differences.

Can I share an opening line?

Yes. The address bar updates with every move you play in the explorer, so the link opens the same line. Copy link puts it on your clipboard.