How to play draughts against the computer
Draughts in Games by Zaweba is English draughts, also called checkers, on a wooden board against the computer. Here is how to play and win.
Open Games by Zaweba and choose Draughts from the Board games shelf to play English draughts, also known as checkers, against the computer. It's on a wooden board, it's free, and it works offline with no adverts or account. You play red and move first.
Draughts is easy to learn and slow to master. A computer opponent is always ready, waits patiently while you think, and lets you replay as often as you like.
Finding Draughts in the app
In the library, look on the Board games shelf or press Ctrl+F and type draughts. The game opens on a title card with the rules and controls. If you play often, you can also make a desktop shortcut that opens Games by Zaweba straight into Draughts using its game id, draughts.
To move, click one of your pieces, then click where it should go. For a multi-jump, click the final square or each landing in turn. Right-click cancels a selection.
The rules in brief
Pieces move diagonally forwards on the dark squares. Jump over an enemy piece to capture it. Captures are compulsory, and you must keep jumping while you can, so a single move can take several pieces.
Reach the far row and your piece is crowned a king, which can move both forwards and backwards. You win by taking every enemy piece, or by leaving the computer with no legal move.
Step by step to a better game
Keep your back row at home for a while. The computer needs to reach your back row to make kings. Leaving those pieces in place early on makes it much harder.
Hold the centre. Pieces in the middle of the board have more options and can support each other. Pieces on the edges are safer from capture but can do less.
Use the compulsory capture. Because a capture has to be taken, you can sometimes offer a piece on purpose to force the computer into a jump that leaves it open to a bigger jump back. That's the most satisfying move in draughts.
Count before you move. Before you commit, look at what the computer could capture in reply. Many games are lost to a single piece left hanging.
Push for a king, then use it. A king can move backwards, which makes it far more flexible. Once you have one, it can hunt down loose pieces and help trap the computer's last men.
In the endgame, think about blocking as well as capturing. Leaving the computer with no move is a win too.
Pausing, rules and records
Esc pauses the game, and it also pauses itself if you click into another window. F1 brings up the rules at any time, and F11 makes the board fill the screen. Games by Zaweba keeps your plays, wins and best score on the game's tile, so you can see how you're getting on against the computer over the weeks.
Where to go after Draughts
The Board games shelf has 14 games in all. If you like draughts, you might enjoy Mill, which is nine men's morris on an inlaid board, or Flip Discs, the disc-flipping game of reversi. Tables is backgammon, and Star Marbles races glass marbles across a six-pointed star with long chains of hops, a bit like the multi-jumps in draughts.
