The board

Who you're playing

All three see the same board. They differ in how far past the next capture they bother to look.

Colours

Applies at once, mid-game.

Two phones, one board

How it's played

Not a rulebook — the four things that separate somebody who knows the rules from somebody who can play.

1 · Jumping is compulsory

If a capture exists anywhere on the board, every legal move is a capture. This is not a detail, it is the engine of the game: you do not win checkers by taking pieces, you win it by offering one so that the reply is forced and the reply after that is a two-for-one. A move that gives a man away is often the strongest move on the board.

2 · Once you start a jump, you finish it

A chain runs until the jumping piece has nothing left to jump. Look down the whole chain before you take the first man — it is the commonest way a beginner loses three pieces to a gift of one.

3 · Crowning ends the move

A man that lands on the far row is crowned and stops there, even with another jump waiting. That one rule decides more endgames than any other: a jump that would otherwise be a triple stops dead at the crown, and knowing that is how you set the trap or avoid it.

4 · You lose by having nothing to move

Not only by running out of pieces. A side with a full board and no legal move has lost, which is why a cramped position is a losing one and why the engine here would rather take your moves than your men.

The back row

Two men left at home stop anything crowning there, and that is worth about a man in the middlegame. It is worth nothing once they have no men left to crown, and worse than nothing in an endgame where you need every piece moving. Knowing when to open it is most of the difference between a good player and a careful one.