How to Play 247 Checkers

Meta Description: Learn how to master checkers using 247 Checkers. Play solo, with a friend, against an online competitor, or in a daily challenge mode.

Checkers is one of the oldest board games out there with boards resembling this game dating back to 3000 BC. It remains popular today, largely thanks to the ease with which someone can jump in and start playing. Thanks to 247 Checkers, you no longer need a checkers board to start playing! The game is readily available online, whenever you feel the urge to play.

Is this your first time playing 247 Checkers? If so, we’ve created an in-depth guide to help you learn the ins and outs of this iconic game. Read on to see how the game pans out, what you need to do while playing, and how to develop a winning checkers strategy.

Checkers Basics

A game of checkers is played between two individuals, both of whom will have twelve pieces. These pieces are small round discs - one player has red ones while the other has black ones. All twenty-four pieces begin on the 8x8 checkers board which looks similar to a chess board and has alternating colored tiles.

The purpose of checkers is to defeat your opponent by doing either of the following:

• “Capturing” all of their pieces
• Putting them in a position where they cannot make a legal move on their turn

Whoever does this first will win - and we’ll talk more about “capturing” throughout this guide to explain what it is and how you do it.

In checkers, each player will take turns to make a move. The player who chooses the black discs will usually go first - this is the default setting on 247 Checkers, so if you want to go first be sure you select the black tiles when setting up your game.

How To Play Checkers at 247 Checkers

Setting up your first game of checkers is easy on our website. Once you’ve loaded up the web page, click on the “Play” button on your screen. This presents four possible options:

• 1 Player
• 2 Player
• Play Online
• Daily Challenge

For the purpose of this section, we want you to click on “1 Player” to begin a single-player match against the computer. It will show you four possible difficulty levels that can be scrolled through by clicking the arrows:

• Easy
• Medium
• Hard
• Expert

Pick whichever difficulty you think you can handle, though we recommend choosing “Easy” if you’ve never played checkers before in your life. You’ll see a quick settings screen before starting your game where you can select which color piece you’ll be. We’ve included a screenshot below that shows what this page looks like:

In the above screenshot, you (Player) are black, so you’ll make the first move of the game. There’s also a setting called “Force Jump” which you can toggle on or off. This refers to a specific rule in checkers where a player is forced to jump over an opponent's piece and “capture” it if the move is possible. When a piece is captured it gets removed from the board - turning this rule ON will ensure that you never miss a chance to capture the computer’s pieces if it’s possible to do so during your turn. This rule also forces you to make consecutive jumps to capture multiple pieces in one turn if you can.

We think it’s best to leave this setting ON, especially when you’re starting out. It stops instances when you could’ve captured some pieces but didn’t realize it because you’re not used to surveying a checkerboard.

After turning the setting on, click “Start Game” to be thrown into your first match.

How To Conduct Moves When Playing 247 Checkers

We’ve mentioned the terms “capturing” and “jumping” a few times already throughout this guide. Both refer to the basic ways you move around a checkerboard. Unlike chess, every piece on a checkerboard has the same movement rules:

You can only move one piece diagonally forward to the next adjacent square.

Pieces towards the middle of the board at the start of a round can move either diagonally left or right as both spaces will be unoccupied. The piece on the far left of your board can only move diagonally to the right while the opposite is true for the piece on the far right. Every checker piece will be on a dark square, so you can never move your disc onto one of the light squares.

On Checkers 247, moves are made by clicking on one of your pieces and selecting the square you wish to move them to.

The tile you select is outlined in yellow, and if you click on an invalid square to move it, it will not move. We have a setting that’s turned on by default but can be tweaked at any point to make your life easier. Click the settings icon in the top right of your screen and turn on the “Show Moves” setting.

This will show you all the available moves for whatever tile you click on - as demonstrated below:

As shown here, the tile you’ve selected can be moved to either of the two green squares. This is a great setting to have on if you’re a beginner as it easily lets you see where all of your pieces can be moved.

You’ll also notice that only four of the black tiles are highlighted in white. It’s another feature of the “Show Moves” setting and indicates which of your pieces can be moved during your turn. All of the other black tiles can’t be moved as they’re blocked by the tiles ahead of them.

After making your move, the computer will automatically have its go and move one of the red pieces. You continue alternating back and forth until one of you wins.

How To Capture Pieces When Playing 247 Checkers

You “capture” an opponent’s piece when your tile jumps diagonally over it. Their piece gets removed and 247 Checkers shows you how many captured tiles each player has on the side of the board. You’ll see in the screenshots above there are small red and black tiles with a 0 in each of them. This demonstrates that neither player has captured a tile yet.

Once you reach 12 of your opponent's tiles, you win the game!

Capturing pieces is only possible when your opponent's tile is diagonally adjacent to yours with a space behind it for you to jump into. Your tile will effectively jump over the opponents and into the free space, capturing the tile it jumped over.

In this screenshot from a 247 Checkers game, you can see that the black tile highlighted in yellow can jump over the red one and land in the square highlighted in red. We’ve got the “Force Jump” and “Show Moves” settings turned on here, which is why capturing the red tile is the only available move.

If we turned “Force Jump” off before the game, you could theoretically move the highlighted tile diagonally to the left. This enters the realm of deep checkers tactics, which is why we recommend leaving the setting on until you become more adept at the game.

Capturing Consecutive Tiles In A Game Of Checkers

Most of the time, you can only move your tile one place during your turn. This changes when you can capture multiple tiles - you’re allowed to capture the first tile and then capture another, and so on.

There’s technically no limit to how many tiles you can capture in one move; it depends on how the board is laid out and the possible moves available to you. As you get better and better at checkers, you learn how to force your opponent into leaving multiple pieces for capturing in a single move. It’s an excellent way to swipe numerous tiles without losing many of your own.

Capturing consecutive tiles is done like this:

• Jump over the first tile and into the space behind it
• If there’s another tile diagonally adjacent to yours and with a valid space behind, you can jump over it as well
• Repeat until there are no more legal moves to make

When playing 247 Checkers with the “Show Moves” feature on, you’ll see when it’s possible to take more than one tile in your turn. Looking above, you’ll notice the highlighted tile can jump diagonally to the right over one red tile, and then diagonally to the left over another. It reaches the end of the board, so it can’t make another move.

Clicking on the first red square will trigger both moves in one go, so you’ll never miss a chance to take multiple pieces.

How To Turn Your Piece Into A King

Regular pieces can only move forward in checkers, but if you get a piece to the end of the board it turns into a king. Kings become hugely powerful pieces that are effective at trapping your opponent and capturing tiles from behind enemy lines. When your piece becomes a king it can now move forward and backward diagonally at all times!

Looking at the example below, you can see a black piece has made it to the end of the board and is now a king. 247 Checkers distinguishes kings from regular pieces by giving them a little crown.

Despite being at the end of the board, this piece can now move backward in either of the two diagonal directions. Look what happens when we move this piece behind one of the red ones:

It can now jump over the red piece and capture it from behind. Enemy pieces that were once safe now have to think about assaults from your forward-moving tiles and any king pieces behind.

You can see why “kinging” as many tiles as possible is a great strategy in checkers as it gives you room to pinch your opponents from both sides at once.

How To Win 247 Checkers Without Capturing All Your Opponent’s Pieces

Cast your mind back to the start of this guide and we spoke about the two ways of winning checkers. One is to capture all of your opponent’s pieces but the other is to force them into a position where they can no longer make a valid move.

This is hard to do, but the best tactic is by “trapping” their tiles at the side of the board. When tiles are on either the left or right side, they only have one possible direction to move. If you can block them in using rows of your tiles, you’re on for a good win.

Here’s an example of a game won by trapping an opponent’s tiles:

The red tile on the left can’t perform a legal move as a black tile is in the way and another one prevents it from jumping over the closer tile and capturing it. On the right-hand side, the red tile is in a horrible position. It could only move to the final dark square on the board, but a black tile already occupies it. As the red player has no moves left, the game is forfeited and the black player wins.

Top Tactics For Winning Checkers

Winning a game of checkers is easier when you know some of the best strategies/tactics to befuddle your opponent. Here are three ideas we recommend all newbies pay attention to:

• Double-up your checkers - Try to move pieces behind one another when moving up the board so you seal up as many gaps as possible to prevent captures. This can be a great way of strangling your opponent and winning as they can’t make any legal moves.

• Work on creating kings - The more pieces you move to the end of the board, the better. Having a strong selection of kings makes it almost impossible for your opponent to win.

• Look for sacrifices - Remember that you’ll rarely win a game of checkers without losing some pieces. Instead of trying to avoid this at all costs, set up chances to sacrifice a tile so you can be in a more advantageous position. For instance, if you can force an opponent to capture your tile to then set up a double or triple capture of your own, then the loss is worth it.

How To Play Two-Player Checkers At 247 Checkers

There’s a two-player “pass and play” option to play checkers with a friend at 247 Checkers. Click “Play” in the main menu and then select the “2 Player” option - it brings you to the same pre-match settings screen as before and you and your friend can decide which color you’ll be and whether you want to keep Force Jump on.

Following this, your game will be created and the black tiles will go first. Whoever uses this color can move before it passes to the red player. Both of you keep taking it in turns until there’s a winner.

It’s a fun game mode if you’re with a friend IRL and want to play checkers to pass the time. You can also make your own brackets and have a mini tournament with your family - this makes it an excellent games night option but without the risk of an upset losing player flipping a real board over!

How To Play Online Checkers At 247 Checkers

We also provide an online version for people who don’t like playing against computers and want to challenge other human beings! You have three options when clicking the “Online” game:

• Play Anyone - Clicking this option will automatically send you into an online game against another person looking for an opponent. You’ll have to wait a few seconds or minutes as we search for someone to pair you up against. Keep in mind you’ll likely be playing a stranger, so they may or may not be much better/worse than you. It’s worth practicing with friends or in the single-player mode until you feel more confident!

• Invite a Friend - Playing a friend online is easy. Click this option and a game will be created for you both. A code flashes up on the screen that you can copy and send to your friend for them to join. Alternatively, there’s a unique link to the game you can send them.

• Join a Friend - Choose this option if your friend has created a game for the two of you. You’ll need to enter the Game Code they sent you, after which you’ll both be in a game and the rules will proceed as normal.

How To Play Daily Challenges At 247 Checkers

The final way to enjoy checkers at 247 Checkers is by partaking in our daily challenge. The aim is to enter a single-player game and try to win as quickly as possible. Your time will be put on our Daily Challenge leaderboard so you can see how you compare to others.

You must click the Daily Challenge option if you want to enter it on any given day. Playing a normal single-player game will not count towards anything.

And there you have it - this is how to play 247 Checkers online whenever you want. Pick from a range of fun game modes, and scroll down the page here to see some Seasonal Checkers Games with cute pieces instead of traditional discs!

• Always diagonally double up your checkers so they cannot be jumped.
• Get your checkers kinged as soon as possible, as this will allow them to move freely around the board.
• Select a two person Checkers game to play with a friend or family!

DISCLAIMER: The games on this website are using PLAY (fake) money. No payouts will be awarded, there are no "winnings", as all games represented by 247 Games LLC are free to play. Play strictly for fun.