HT Games
Board Setup
A checkerboard has 64 squares. The squares alternate light and dark and are arranged in an eight by eight square board. In the official tournament rules, a checkerboard must have green and buff squares, which must be 2 inches square. Players have 12 pieces, which they each place on the dark squares of the first three rows on their side of the board. One player's pieces are dark and the other's are light; in official tournament play, they must be white and red as well as 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter.
Moving
Before a game starts, players flip a coin or otherwise randomly decide who gets the dark pieces, which always move first. (In a series of games, players randomly decide for the first game and then alternate who gets the dark pieces in subsequent games.) Each checker can move forward on a diagonal, one space at a time. When a piece reaches the opposite side of the board from where it started, it becomes a "king," designated by the player placing another checker on top. Kings can move one space diagonally in any direction. In the official tournament rules, players must make 30 moves per hour; if they run out of time, they forfeit the game.
Jumping
When one player's piece is adjacent to a square with an opponent's piece and there is an empty square behind it, the player jumps the opponent's piece, moving his piece to the empty square behind it and capturing the opponent's piece (removing it from the board). The rules require that a player jump if the opportunity presents itself. Players can make multiple jumps if possible, and the piece can change direction between jumps (although only kings can move backward). A game of checkers ends when one player captures all of her opponent's pieces. In a case where neither player can capture the opponent's pieces, the game ends in a draw.