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ENGLISH CHECKERS (Draughts)

English Checkers (Draughts) is also called American Checkers or Straight Checkers. It is played on an 8×8 board with 12 pieces on each side. The player with the dark playing pieces moves first. Regular playing pieces or Men (as opposed to Kings or Crowned pieces) can only move forward. Men can only capture forward while Kings can capture both backward and forward. When there is more than one way for a player to capture, the player may choose which sequence to make, not necessarily the sequence that will result in the greatest number of captures. However, the player must make all the captures in that sequence.

RULES

As in all checkers or draughts variants, English Checkers is played by two people, on opposite sides of a playing board, alternating moves. One player has light playing pieces, and the other has the dark playing pieces. Playing pieces move diagonally and pieces of the opponent are captured by jumping over them. CAPTURING IS MANDATORY. All captures of the sequence have to be completed, and a player many not choose to stop capturing until the chosen capture sequence is complete.
The Checkers Board:
The board for English Checkers is an 8×8 grid, with alternating dark and light squares forming a checkered pattern, from which the game gets its American Name. Players play only on the 32 dark squares. A consequence of this is that, from each player's perspective, the left and right corners encourage different strategies.
Playing Pieces:
The English Checkers playing pieces are normally made of wood and are flat and circular. There are 2 types of pieces: Men and King.
Men:
Men, or Uncrowned pieces, can move it tow ways either by sliding a piece diagonally forward to an adjacent and unoccupied dark square, or capturing (jumping over) a piece of the opposing player. It is possible for a Man to capture if on one side there is an opposing piece and the opposite side is vacant. In this case, one piece would jump over the other into the vacant square on the opposite side. A piece that is captured is removed from the board. Capturing in sequence (jumping over more than one opponent's piece) is possible when the capturing piece lands where there is another opponent's piece directly adjacent to the landing square and the capturing pieces can jump over that piece to another vacant, unoccupied square. Capturing is mandatory and cannot be passed up to make another move.
King:
A Man which reaches the far side of the board, whether by means of capture or a move, becomes a King and gain the ability to also move backward, but only one step at a time. This is not like the Flying Kings of International Draughts or Russian Checkers. When a Man is crowned King, it ends the move. It cannot capture or move until the next turn..