Checkers Game and Board Games Online. Play free internet checkers game

This Checkers applet supports player versus computer and player vs. player mode, and optionally computer vs. computer.
To move a piece click on it, It will be backlit in orange, and then click on the target square. If there is a forced capture elsewhere, then the piece will be backlit in blue

The features of this applet include:

Plays standard checkers: forced captures, multiple captures.

Minimax algorithm with alpha-beta pruning

Robust interface with support for 0/1/2-player modes

Randomization of moves: the computer player does not repeat games

Automatic search deepening: when a forced move is detected, that variation is automatically searched one ply deeper

Note: This Java version of Checkers Game may not display or work properly in some browsers, due to the changes in certain Java engines.
It does work fine in Internet Explorer 5 (SP3).

The authors

Victor Huang

Sung Ha Huh

Notes from the authors of this checkers Java applet
" We implemented forced and multiple captures because this is how checkers is played seriously. Leaving these features out would be like coding a chess program without allowing pawns to be pushed two spaces, en passant and underpromotion. The game may look the same in the beginning, but play is highly crippled. This made for most of the problems in the implementation, since bugs were difficult to find. We are very proud of the fact that we implement forced captures for the player, and that the game engine makes captures when they are possible.

Also, in the case of multiple captures, the interface is intuitive for the player, since he will be able to click on all the intermediate squares. The background color of the checker after one capture allows him to see easily that a further capture is possible. Some implementations we have seen require right clicks of the mouse which is difficult for the player to keep track of.

The computer will only consider moves to be complete in the case of multiple captures if the 'active' checker, that is, the checker that has already captured, has no further captures. Therefore it will not terminate multiple captures halfway because that would be illegal."

checkers.ws |