How To Play American Checkers

Starting position

Each player starts with 12 men on the dark squares of the three rows closest to that player's side. The row closest to each player is called the kings row or crownhead. The player with the red pieces moves first. Then turns alternate.

Move rules

There are two different ways to move in checkers:

Simple move: A simple move consists of moving a piece one square diagonally to an adjacent unoccupied dark square. Uncrowned pieces can move diagonally forward only; kings can move in any diagonal direction.
Jump: A jump consists of moving a piece that is diagonally adjacent an opponent's piece, to an empty square immediately beyond it in the same direction (thus "jumping over" the opponent's piece front and back ). Men can jump diagonally forward only; kings can jump in any diagonal direction. A jumped piece is considered "captured" and removed from the game. Any piece, king or man, can jump a king.

Jumping is always mandatory: if a player has the option to jump, they must take it, even if doing so results in disadvantage for the jumping player. For example, a mandated single jump might set up the player such that the opponent has a multi-jump in reply. Multiple jumps are possible, if after one jump, another piece is immediately eligible to be jumped by the moved piece - even if that jump is in a different diagonal direction. If more than one multi-jump is available, the player can choose which piece to jump with, and which sequence of jumps to make. The sequence chosen is not required to be the one that maximizes the number of jumps in the turn; however, a player must make all available jumps in the sequence chosen.

Kings

If a man moves into the kings row on the opponent's side of the board, it is crowned as a king and gains the ability to move both forward and backward. If a man moves into the kings row or if it jumps into the kings row, the current move terminates; the piece is crowned as a king but cannot jump back out as in a multi-jump until the next move.

End of game

A player wins by capturing all of the opponent's pieces or by leaving the opponent with no legal move.

Adapted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_draughts#Rules