German Kings Checkers Strategy

While checkers is quite a simple game, especially when compared to chess, there are a number of different variations that can really serve to make the experience a lot more enjoyable. One of the more interesting and challenging variations of the game is called German Kings. In this particular variant, the kings are a lot more powerful than they would be in a regular game of checkers.

What is the German Kings Checkers Strategy?

As you may already know, checkers pieces are made into kings when they have managed to reach the king’s row, or the furthest row of the checker board as viewed from the advancing player’s perspective. Once a checkers piece has been “crowned” (which is the process of being made a king, and having a second previously captured checkers piece placed on top of it in order to distinguish it from the rest of the pieces on the checker board) it gains the ability to move in both a forward and backward direction, just as long as such moves are made diagonally. This is the case whether the move is a capture of one of the opponent’s checkers pieces, or it is a simple single square sliding move. Regular checkers pieces are of course limited to only a forward diagonal movement, whether it is for a capture or an advancing move.

As powerful as the king already is in the regular variation of the game of checkers, in German Kings they are made all the more powerful since regular checkers pieces lose the ability to capture them. In this particular variation, only Kings have the power to capture their fellow Kings.

Why German?

The German Kings variation of the game is not really related to the variation called German Checkers, although they share similar names. This particular variant has a lot of similarities with Spanish Checkers with a few key differences. As in Spanish Checkers, checkers pieces in German Checkers can still move only in a forward motion, although they have the ability to jump backwards as well as forwards. Furthermore, these checkers pieces are not promoted to king if they reach the last row of the checker board during a capturing move, if that upon reaching that row there are one or more jumps available that will move it away from that last row.

Interestingly enough, German Checkers is now more popularly known as Brazilian Checkers, since it is still commonly played in Brazil. At present, International Checkers is the more commonly played version of the game in Germany.