How to Start a Game of Checkers

The first few moves of a checkers game decide how much room you will have for the rest of it. You do not need to memorize opening lines to play well. You need three habits: push toward the center, keep your back row for as long as you can, and never make a move that lets your opponent jump a piece for free. Get those right and you will already be ahead of most casual players.

Black moves first in Checkers, then players alternate. Everything below is written for the player who wants to stop losing in the first ten moves and start building real positions.

The game is about the center

Look at the board as three vertical zones: the two edge columns on each side, and the middle. A piece in the center can move to two squares. A piece jammed against the edge can only move to one. That single difference adds up over a whole game. The player whose pieces have more choices usually finds the good moves first and gets forced into bad ones less often.

So your opening goal is simple: get pieces into the center rows without exposing them. Advance the men in your second row toward the middle of the board before you touch the edges. The four central squares are the most valuable real estate on the board, and whoever influences them tends to steer the game.

Good first moves develop, they don’t attack

A common beginner instinct is to shove a piece as far forward as possible right away. Resist it. An advanced piece with nothing behind it is a target. Instead, make quiet developing moves that bring a central man one square forward to an empty dark square, staying close enough to your other pieces that they can support each other.

“Support” in checkers means this: if your opponent jumps one of your pieces, you want to be able to jump right back. A lone man poked into enemy territory has no answer when it gets taken. Two pieces side by side, or one covering the square behind another, are much harder to attack, because any capture invites an immediate recapture.

Keep your back row for now

The four men on your back row are your defense. As long as they sit there, your opponent’s men cannot reach the far row to become kings — every promoting square is guarded. Give up the back row too early and you invite an enemy king into your camp, where it can roam in every direction while your men can still only move forward.

You will eventually have to move back-row pieces, but do it late and do it deliberately. In the opening, develop your front and middle men first and leave the back rank intact. A solid back row is worth more than one extra advanced piece almost every time.

The one rule that shapes every move

Capturing is mandatory. If your opponent has a jump available, they must take it — and so must you. That cuts both ways, and it is the key to safe opening play: before you let go of a piece, check whether your move hands the opponent a jump.

Ask two questions each turn. First, does my move put a piece next to an enemy man with an empty square behind it? If so, I am offering a free jump. Second, if the opponent jumps, can I jump back and come out even or ahead? If the answer to the first is yes and the second is no, find a different move.

Because jumps are forced, you can also use them. If you can arrange things so that the opponent’s only legal move is a jump that walks into your recapture, you win material without a fight. That is the seed of every combination you will learn later — and it starts with watching which squares are safe.

After the first few moves

Once your central men are developed and your back row is intact, start thinking about trades. Even exchanges — you take one, they take one — are fine when the position is equal, and they gently simplify the board. Avoid trades that leave your remaining pieces scattered or that pull your last defender off the back row for nothing.

Keep your formation connected. A wall of mutually supporting men that advances slowly is far stronger than a handful of brave pieces racing ahead alone. Patience wins checkers games. The player who refuses to give away free pieces, and who keeps every man supported, forces the opponent to make the first mistake.

If you want to know exactly how pieces move and capture before you drill these habits, read the full Checkers rules. When you are ready to see traps in action, the next step is learning the early-game traps that end games in seconds, and you can browse every guide on the lessons hub. Curious how the opening changes on bigger boards or with flying kings? Compare the checkers variants — then start a game and put the center-first habit to work.