Other boards worth setting up after checkers
Draughts is a game of forced sequences and quiet positional traps. If you want a different board in front of you, this page is a shortlist of 19 games worth playing - all free, all instant in the browser, none of them asking you to download or sign up for anything.
Five groups. The other board and tile games are the closest, and two of them share the no-hidden-information property that makes draughts so unforgiving. Puzzle and arcade games add a clock, card games add a hidden hand, the dice games add luck, and one entry is a clock you can use here.
Board questions
Which of these is closest to Checkers?
The first group on this page is ordered with the closest relatives first, so start at the top. Beyond that it depends what you like about Checkers - the puzzle and tile games reward reading a board, the card games reward counting and memory, and the dice games put the randomness in the foreground where you can see it.
Are they free, or is there a catch?
They are free in the same way Checkers.now is free: every mode, every daily challenge and every leaderboard, with no paywall, no trial and no download. The card and casino titles use play money only - there is no real gambling in any of them.
Do these open in the same browser tab?
They are ordinary websites, so they behave however your browser is set to behave - nothing here hijacks a tab or opens a pop-up. Each one loads its game directly on the page, with no launcher, no plugin and no install step.
How long does a game take?
It varies enormously. The dice and arcade games are usually done inside five minutes. Card games run ten to twenty. A board game against a thinking opponent can take half an hour, and the tile puzzles take as long as you let them - there is no clock on most of them.
Other boards worth setting up
Flip discs to take the board - but own too many too early and you run out of moves.
Play Reversi online →Tile matching with a scorekeeper's edge - the closest cousin Tetris has among traditional games, since both are really about what fits where.
Play Dominoes online →Race four tokens home, and learn to count the six squares behind each of them.
Play Ludo online →Three in a row, plus the larger grids and inverted rules where it stops being trivial.
Play Tic Tac Toe online →Boards with a clock
Eleven ways to play the falling-block game, from a calm endless mode to 20G instant gravity.
Play Tetris online →A mixed cabinet of browser puzzles for when you want to think without a clock running.
Play free puzzle games →Clear the board by matching free tiles, across layouts from the classic Turtle to the brutal Dragon.
Play Mahjong online →Dots, power pellets and four pursuers with four different targeting routines.
Play Pac-Man online →What to time them with
A free browser clock that makes draughts, dominoes and Scrabble move a great deal faster.
Use a free online chess clock →Boards with a hidden hand
The card game you play while thinking about something else - in a dozen different forms.
Play Solitaire online →Every card face up from the first move, four free cells and a solvable deal - the most chess-like member of the solitaire family.
Play FreeCell online →Duck every heart and the queen of spades - or take the lot and hand the points to everyone else.
Play Hearts online →Name your tricks, then deliver exactly that many. Overshoot and the bags quietly bury you.
Play Spades online →Build sets and runs and go out before your opponents, across the classic Rummy variants.
Play Rummy online →Ten cards, one draw, and a running argument with yourself about when to knock.
Play Gin Rummy online →Melds of seven, wild cards, frozen discard piles and the deep partnership scoring that made Canasta a household game.
Play Canasta online →Seventeen variants and a strategy chart - the correct move is known, following it is the hard part.
Play Blackjack online →Boards with dice
The dice-and-scorecard classic, where the upper-section bonus quietly decides most games.
Play Yahtzee online →Or set it up again
Nothing here has to replace Checkers. If you would rather stay, the main game is one click away, the rules hub covers how everything works, and the FAQ answers the common questions.