A king in checkers moves one square diagonally in any of the four directions, forwards or backwards, and captures the same way, by jumping over an adjacent enemy piece to the empty square beyond. These are the movement rules for English and American checkers, described in WCDF sections 1.16–1.21. Ordinary men move forward only; a king is a man that has earned the right to come back.
On Pure Checkers, kings fly along empty diagonals. The diagrams distinguish that movement from English one-step kings; each interactive board uses this site’s rules.
The quick setup guide introduces the board before promotion; the site FAQ covers bots and rooms for practising these king moves.
How a piece becomes a king
A man is crowned when it reaches the last row on the far side of the board, the row its opponent started on. That row is often called the king row or the crownhead. On a board with the standard 1 to 32 numbering, red’s men are crowned on squares 29 to 32 and black’s on squares 1 to 4. (If that numbering is new to you, the rules guide explains it, including why square 1 sits at the bottom right on this site.)
Crowning happens the moment the man arrives, whether it arrives by a quiet move or by a jump. In a physical game a second piece is placed on top of it; online the piece simply gets a crown. From the next turn on it moves as a king.
One detail matters for tactics: crowning ends the move. If a man reaches the king row in the middle of a multi-jump, it is crowned and stops, even if the new king could jump again from where it landed. It may make that jump on your next turn, if the target is still there. English rules and Pure Checkers both stop it. Do not carry that convention into another variant without checking its promotion rules.
In the sequence below, the red man on 27 steps to 32 and is crowned. Black moves a man, and then the new king steps back to 27, a move no man could make.
- Square 3: red man
- Square 10: red man
- Square 19: black man
- Square 21: black man
- Square 27: red man
Starting position.
- The man reaches the king row and is crowned.
- Black plays a waiting move.
- The king moves backwards, one square.
Movement: one square, any diagonal
Under English and American rules a king moves exactly like a man, except that it may move in all four diagonal directions instead of only forwards. One square per move, to an empty square, on the diagonals only. It cannot move sideways or straight ahead, it cannot pass over pieces, and it cannot move two squares unless it is jumping.
That sounds like a small upgrade. It is not. A man on the standard board has at most two squares it can move to; a king in the open has four. The practical benefit is the ability to retreat or change which side of the board it defends. Mobility still depends on occupied squares and compulsory captures: a king with four geometric directions does not necessarily have four legal moves.
The diagram shows a red king on square 18, near the centre. Toggle the illustrative highlights to compare reachable squares. This static comparison does not switch the app’s ruleset. Under the standard one-step rule it can move to 22, 23, 15 or 14. With flying kings, the rule on Pure Checkers, the same king can reach twelve squares, stopping only where a piece blocks the diagonal.
- Square 3: red man
- Square 4: red man
- Square 12: red man
- Square 18: red king
- Square 21: black man
- Square 26: black man
- Square 30: black man
- Square 31: black man
Capturing with a king
Under English rules, kings capture adjacent opposing pieces in either diagonal direction and can change direction during a chain. Each hop needs an empty landing immediately beyond the target.
Everything from the forced capture article applies to kings. If any piece can jump, you must choose an available capture. The king must jump when it is the only piece that can capture, even into a recapture. If it can continue a chain, it must. If several captures are available, you may choose which piece captures and which route it takes. And a king is captured in exactly the same way as a man; there is nothing special about jumping a king except that you will enjoy it more.
Here is a king double jump. The red king on 14 jumps the black man on 18, landing on 23, and from there jumps the man on 26, landing on 30. Both hops advance toward red’s king row. An ordinary man can make this forward zigzag too; changing left-to-right diagonal direction is different from jumping backward.
- Square 2: red man
- Square 3: red man
- Square 14: red king
- Square 18: black man
- Square 21: black man
- Square 26: black man
- Square 32: black man
Starting position.
- First hop: capture 18 and keep the turn.
- Second hop: capture 26. Both hops go forward for red.
Two adjacent enemy pieces on the same diagonal cannot be jumped in one hop: the first has no empty landing immediately beyond it. This blocks that particular capture route in English checkers and here.
What a king is worth depends on the position
A crown changes the legal moves, not the rules for winning. A trapped king can be lost; well-supported men can threaten promotion; a capture can pull a strong piece away from the square it needs to defend. Compare those concrete possibilities before deciding whether to exchange a king for men.
The bot on Pure Checkers gives a king a base value of 5 and a man a base value of 1 in its evaluation. Those numbers are a search heuristic, not a guarantee that any king is worth exactly five men. The bot also searches legal replies and applies smaller advancement and central-column bonuses. A forced loss can outweigh a favourable material count.
For your own decisions, check three things: where the king can safely land, what the opponent is forced to capture, and whether a man can reach the king row. Count the entire exchange. A king that takes two men and is then recaptured has not simply won two pieces for nothing.
The double-jump guide gives a verified sacrifice with supporting pieces that block unwanted continuations. Use that same attention to landing squares when trading kings. It is more dependable than applying a fixed numerical exchange rate to every board.
Flying kings: the variant Pure Checkers uses
The one-step movement described above belongs to English rules. On this site a king may move any number of empty squares along a diagonal in one turn, and it captures from a distance.
The position below shows a flying capture that is impossible in English checkers. The red king on 32 and the black man on 18 are three squares apart on the long diagonal with nothing between them. Click the king: the engine offers three landing squares, 14, 9 and 5, every empty square beyond the man. A one-step king could not have captured this piece at all without first walking up next to it.
- Square 3: red man
- Square 10: red man
- Square 18: black man
- Square 21: black man
- Square 32: red king
Click a piece, then a highlighted square. Both sides are yours to move.
When a flying king shares a diagonal with your piece, check its landing squares before moving. You can deliberately offer that piece if the resulting exchange helps you, but first calculate the complete capture route and your reply.
Three checks before moving a king
Look along the whole diagonal. With a flying king, a distant opponent can be a legal capture even when nothing is adjacent. First find the opposing piece, then check the empty landing squares beyond it. A friendly blocker or a second adjacent enemy can close that route.
Examine the landing, not just the target. Different landings beyond the same captured piece can produce different continuations. One may force another jump while another ends the chain. Step through each route before deciding which position you want. The longest-looking move is not automatically the safest.
Remember the draw rules. Moving a king back and forth does not keep a game going forever. Pure Checkers automatically ends a game when the same position with the same side to move occurs three times, or after 50 turns without a capture. Promotion alone does not reset that capture counter. The rules guide distinguishes those automatic conditions from English tournament draw procedures.
Use Reset to compare another flying-capture landing.