Canadian Draughts - Free Canadian Draughts Online: The Giant 12x12 Checkers Board

Canadian Checkers

Canadian checkers is draughts at its maximum size, a free browser game played on a 12x12 board where each player starts with 30 pieces. Nothing else in the family comes close to that scale. A standard game of checkers puts 24 pieces on 64 squares, while the Canadian game crowds 60 pieces onto 144, and the opening position leaves only a dozen dark squares unoccupied. You can start a match on this page right now, with a friend joining by link or a computer opponent filling the other seat, and the full 12x12 ruleset already loaded.

Big-board draughts suits a different kind of player. Games run longer, plans span twenty moves instead of five, and a single blunder rarely decides anything, which makes this the variant for players who wish their favorite board game would simply last longer.

The 12x12 Checkers Board

Here are both boards drawn to the same scale, with every starting piece in place:

More than double the squares changes every phase of the game. In the opening, each side's five starting rows form deep walls of pieces that take many moves to reach each other. In the middlegame, the board is wide enough for separate fights on the left and right flanks at once, and a player who is winning one flank can be losing the other. In the endgame, diagonals up to twelve squares long put the whole board inside a promoted piece's reach.

Canadian Checkers Rules

The game is a Quebec invention. French settlers there scaled up the continental game and called the result Grand jeu de dames, as documented on Wikipedia, and it remains most popular in French-speaking Canada today. Mechanically it plays by the same laws as international draughts, grown from 10x10 to 12x12, so players of the tournament game can sit down at the big board with nothing new to memorize.

For everyone else, the rulebook in brief. The ordinary pieces are known as men. Each of your 30 men starts on a dark square in your five nearest rows, white takes the opening move, and a man steps forward one diagonal square onto an empty one, never backward. To capture, a man jumps over an enemy piece on a touching diagonal square, in front of it or behind it, and comes down on the vacant square directly past it. More jumps from the arrival square extend the same turn, and capturing is compulsory whenever it is possible. When different captures are available, you must play whichever takes more.

A man that finishes its turn on the twelfth row is crowned a king. Crossing that row partway through a string of jumps is not enough, the move has to end there. Kings move the length of any open diagonal in one turn, and when a king jumps an enemy it lands on the open square just past that piece. You win by capturing all 30 enemy men or leaving your opponent without a legal move, while a third repetition of the same position, or 100 turns without a capture, counts as a draw. That last rule matters here, because big-board endgames can otherwise circle forever.

Play Canadian Draughts Online

The board at the top of this page is already set to 12x12, so one click on play starts the full 60-piece game. Coming from Foony's checkers lobby instead, choose Play with Friends and select Canadian Draughts from the preset cards in the room settings, or choose Play Bots and set it as the Game Variant. Every room is a single shareable URL, so the friend you challenge just opens a link in their browser, on any device, and the giant board fits phone screens because the whole thing scales.

Computer opponents come in seven levels from Trivial to Grandmaster, with the whole match held at one level, and the strong ones handle the huge position count of this variant without slowing the game down. Each move runs on a 25 second default clock, worth keeping for this variant in particular, since turns with sixty pieces on the board can otherwise run long. Hosts who want longer thinking time can relax or disable it, and the Advanced tab lets them change any rule, including shrinking the board back to 8x8.

Canadian Checkers Strategy

Play for position, because captures come slowly. A one-piece lead out of 30 is a small edge, nothing like what the same lead means on a small board. Wins here are built from structure: connected blocks of men that advance together, deny jumping lanes, and squeeze space a row at a time.

Fight for both flanks separately. The board is wide enough that the left and right sides play out almost independently, and beginners tend to push everything into one side. Glance at the far flank every turn, since a collapse there takes many moves to reinforce across twelve columns.

Treat promotion as a project. The crowning row is eleven rows from where your men begin, so a king is a mid-to-late-game achievement that usually needs an escort. Plan on two or three men to clear the path, and remember your opponent must capture when you offer, which lets you open promotion lanes with well-timed sacrifices.

Mind the 100-turn clock in the endgame. With flying kings covering twelve-square diagonals, chases are common, and a cornered opponent will circle toward the no-capture draw. If you hold the advantage, force trades early instead of walking a winning position around the board until the counter runs out.

When You Want a Shorter Game

The big board takes time, and some evenings call for a quicker game. Classic checkers gives you the same diagonal play in a quarter of the space and a fraction of the time, and every preset in Foony's checkers lobby, from 8x8 up to this 12x12 giant, shares the same invite links, the same seven computer levels, and the same free, no-install browser play. Pick the board that fits the evening.