Go to my home page


Jim Loy's Checkers Pages:

These pages are dedicated to Leon H. Goans, who trained me in the traditional manner of (1) defeating me game after game by mail, (2) offering advice and encouragement, (3) losing to me now and then as his health deteriorated, and (4) giving me much of his checkers library. I hope he's still around and playing checkers. These pages are also dedicated to Richard L. Fortman and Jerry Childers, who taught me a lot about checkers writing and annotating.

In 2004, the ACF National Go-As-You-Please Tournament and the National Three-Move Tournament will be back to back in Vegas. Play in one or the other or both. See the American Checker Federation site for details.

NEW Free sample online: ACF Bulletin #306 (December 2003). Brought to you by the ACF, Al Darrow, and Jim Loy. Under construction.

Free sample online: ACF Bulletin #270 (December 1997). Brought to you by the ACF, and Jim Loy.

The most common injury in chess: Getting your king stuck in your eye, when you doze off (checkers is much safer).

Contents:

LookSmart (a WWW directory) claims to have looked at well over a million World Wide Web pages, in their efforts to bring us the very best of them all! And they have awarded me their "Editor's Choice Award" for my checkers pages. The Chinook pages have also won this award. The ACF pages have also won a couple of awards.

Triplejump logoTriplejump Checkers has voted these pages as their Site of the Month, for March, 1999.


Miscellaneous articles:


Famous checkers games

Essence of Checkers: In my opinion, shots are the essence of checkers. The games that I annotate are mostly spectacular. Of course, I don't want anyone dozing off in the middle of one of my articles. But mainly, I'm trying to pound into your head: These nice shots are important. And you will overlook traps and shots every few moves, if you don't keep that in mind.

Famous checkers games (19th Century, games involving World Champions):

This famous game is in my article on the In and Out Shot: Wyllie-McGreevy.


Famous checkers games (19th Century, games involving other players):

These famous games are in my article on Famous Opening Shots: Heffner-Hill, Don-Amateur, Pringle-friend.

These famous games are in my article on Clearing To A Draw: Home-Bryden, Reavelly-Reid

This famous game is in my article on the In and Out Shot: Smith-friend.


Famous checkers games (with corrections):

These are famous games that should have ended differently. And, until now, the annotators did not point this out.


Famous and other checkers games (20th Century):


Easy Endings:


Expert Endings:

Some of the famous games, which I have annotated, involve educational endings: Wyllie-Anderson, Coakley-Wyllie, Way-Coltherd, Stewart-Moir, Brown-Martins, Brown-Asher, N.Banks-A.Jordan, Wiswell-Hopper, Fraser's Inferno, Tinsley's Blockbuster Cook, Lafferty-Tinsley.


Openings (also see Middlegames, below):

Opening Index To My Checkers Pages


Middlegames (and openings and endings):

Also see Easy Checkers Problems and Loy's Checker Problems (some are endings, most are middlegame shots).


Quizzes:

  1. Octopus
  2. 26-17 Single Corner
  3. Laird and Lady
  4. Fife
  5. Dundee
  6. 26-17 Defiance
  7. Single Corner
  8. Laird and Lady
  9. 10-15 23-18 12-16
  10. Double Cross
  11. 12-16 22-18 16-20
  12. Dundee NEW
  13. 11-16 24-20 16-19 NEW

These are not casual games. Take your time on these. Each move must be considered carefully. You will improve greatly, if you do this in your own games.


Book Reviews:


Some of my own games & tournaments:

How I got started: I wrote a checker program, and as it got better, so did I. Then I saw an ad, in Chess Life, about the ACF. And I joined ACF and started playing checkers by mail (I was already a strong postal chess player). After many years, I was beating national champs (not as often as they beat me). Beating the best is addictive.


Other checkers links (players, organizations, & software companies):


WWW links (some of these links are broken):

Note: I try not to link to any page that gives 3 or more Cookies per page. You can allow or disable cookies, so such pages should cause no problems. But I do not like the idea of cookies. The game servers keep your password and other legitimate info in cookies, to speed up your playing session.


10x10 checkers links:


Send me email
Go to my home page