Play Turkish Draughts vs the Computer
A free AI opponent for dama · Updated August 20, 2026
You do not need a second player to enjoy Turkish draughts. Checkers Arena includes a free computer opponent that plays the full orthogonal rules — forward and sideways captures, rook-like flying kings and the compulsory maximum capture — on three difficulty levels, right in your browser, with no signup.
▶ Play vs the computerThe three difficulty levels, exactly
Most sites describe their computer opponent with adjectives. Here are the actual settings, because "medium" means nothing on its own. A half-move is one side playing once, so a full move by both players is two of them.
| Level | Looks ahead | Plays a deliberately weaker move | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 2 half-moves | About 1 move in 3 | Learning the orthogonal board. It will miss things, on purpose. |
| Medium | 3 half-moves | About 1 move in 7 | A real game once captures and kings feel natural. |
| Hard | Up to 10 half-moves | Never | A genuine test. It will punish a loose piece. |
The gap between medium and hard is deliberately large. Easy and medium are capped by their search depth and answer almost instantly; hard is capped by a time budget instead and uses all of it, so it reaches about eight half-moves in a typical Turkish middlegame — deeper in quiet positions, shallower when the board is full of forced captures to work through.
The default level is easy, on purpose: winning your first game is the main reason anyone plays a second. Your choice is remembered in your browser, so if you move up you stay there.
How the computer decides on a move
The opponent uses minimax with alpha-beta pruning and iterative deepening over the same rules engine that draws the live board — the very same code that runs every other variant, given Turkish's orthogonal geometry. It searches one half-move deeper, then re-orders its candidate moves using what that pass learned, then searches deeper again, until its time runs out. Two refinements do most of the work:
- Move ordering. Alpha-beta only pays off when the best move is examined first, so the engine remembers which moves caused a cutoff elsewhere in the tree and tries those first. This alone cuts the positions it has to examine by about two thirds.
- A transposition table. The same position is often reachable by several different move orders. The engine hashes each position and remembers what it concluded, so it never solves the same problem twice — worth roughly another third.
Because captures are compulsory and frequently forced, it pays particular attention to capture sequences, and it values kings highly to reflect how dominant a rook-like king is on an open board. Every move it plays is generated by the rules engine itself, so an illegal move is not something it is capable of producing.
Why the orthogonal board is harder to search
Turkish draughts is the variant where the computer sees least far ahead, and the reason is the geometry. A diagonal draughts piece stands on one of 32 dark squares and has at most four directions; a Turkish piece stands on any of 64 squares, and the board starts with 16 pieces a side rather than 12. More pieces, more squares and rook-like kings sweeping whole ranks mean many more legal moves per position — and the number of positions to examine multiplies with every extra half-move.
Measured against the other variants at an identical time budget, the same engine reaches around 13 half-moves in American checkers and about 8 in Turkish draughts. That is not a weakness in the Turkish opponent so much as a fact about the game, and it has a practical consequence for you: deep combinations are more likely to slip past it here than anywhere else on this site. If you are going to out-calculate the computer in any variant, this is the one.
Seven ways to beat it
- Think in straight lines. Threats come along files and ranks, not diagonals — watch the square in front of each of your pieces and the squares to either side.
- Mind the sideways capture. A piece safe from a forward jump can still be taken from the side. This is the single most common way beginners lose material here.
- Use the compulsory-capture rule as a weapon. The computer is not choosing to take your offered piece — it is obliged to take the longest capture available. If you can find a sacrifice that forces a specific reply, you have effectively chosen its move for it.
- Fight for the first king. A rook-like king on an open rank is worth several men. Steer toward an endgame where yours arrives first.
- Count the whole combination. Captures chain and turn corners — a "free" piece is very often the first link in a longer sequence pointing back at you.
- Keep your back row a little longer than feels comfortable. It is the row the opponent needs to reach to crown, and in Turkish draughts it starts empty.
- Play the endgame slowly. Hard is at its strongest when few pieces remain and its search reaches the end of the game. If you are winning, trade down carefully rather than fast.
Practising without an opponent
Playing the computer is one way to improve; checking your own ideas is another. The analysis board lets you set up a position and ask the engine what the best move is and why — useful the moment after a game where you are sure you had something. For everyday training there is a daily puzzle, and if you enjoy the endgame the endgame database holds every American position with four pieces or fewer solved exactly. Both of those tools are American checkers only for now; the computer opponent, however, plays all four variants.
When you want a human instead, every variant can be played online — an invite link puts a friend on the other side of the board in one click, with no account needed on either side.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Turkish draughts computer opponent free?
Yes. All three difficulty levels are free, with no signup and no download. The opponent runs in your browser rather than on a server, so a game costs nothing and starts instantly.
How hard is the Turkish draughts AI on each level?
Easy looks two half-moves ahead and deliberately plays a weaker move about a third of the time, so a beginner can win. Medium looks three half-moves ahead and plays a weaker move roughly one move in seven. Hard searches up to ten half-moves within its time budget and never throws a move away on purpose.
Can the computer cheat at Turkish draughts?
No. The opponent generates its moves with the same rules engine that validates yours, so an illegal move is not something it can produce. It also sees exactly the position you see — there is no hidden information in draughts to give it.
Why does the computer sometimes take more pieces than it has to?
It is not choosing to. Turkish draughts enforces compulsory maximum capture: when several capture sequences are available, the one that takes the most pieces is the only legal move for either side. If the computer takes four pieces when a two-piece capture was on the board, the four-piece line was forced.
Does the computer play Turkish draughts with the correct crowning rule?
Yes, and it is a rule that trips up many implementations. A man that reaches the back row in the middle of a capture sequence does not stop and become a king — it continues capturing as a man, and is only crowned if the move ends there. The engine promotes strictly on where a move ends, which matches Turkish federation tournament rules.
New to the rules? Read the Turkish draughts rules first, or see how the game compares with the diagonal variants on the differences page.
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