Kings Row - Reaching the King’s Row in Checkers

The king’s row in checks is a particularly important part of the checker board, in that it holds the key to what is the most powerful piece in the entire game which is the king.

Why Reach the Kings Row?

As you may well know, there are only two hierarchies of pieces in checkers, unlike in chess where there are several different pieces with different rankings. The king is of course the more powerful of these two types of checkers pieces, and using it effectively greatly increases your chances of winning the game.

The king’s row is the first row of your opponent's side of the board. Once you have managed to reach this point of the board with one of your checkers pieces, that piece is then “crowned” or “kinged”.

What Now?

Once a player manages to get one of his checkers pieces on the king's row as a result of a capturing move, that piece must be crowned even if there is another capture available. He can only move from that position on his next turn. A checkers piece that has been crowned is marked from the other pieces on the board by placing on top of it a single checkers piece that had been previously captured, making it twice as high as the other pieces on the checker board.

While checkers pieces that have been made kings are still restricted only to diagonal movements on the board, they have the benefit of being allowed to move forward and backward. Regular checkers pieces are of course limited to only forward movements.

Moving with Checkers Kings

Kings are also allowed to make jumps forward or backward within a single turn. Single pieces on the other hand are limited to only moving forward towards the opponent’s side of the board, although they may change direction during a single turn with multiple captures.

Multiple captures are actually a good way to get an early king right at the beginning of a game. Getting a king early on will have the effect of demoralizing your opponent, making it hard for him or her to recover enough to gain the upper hand.

When trying to reach the kings row and going for a king, keep in mind that setting up effective traps and avoiding falling into them yourself is of utmost importance.